Side by side, from the sources

Osiris vs Set

These two are set against one another in the texts, which is itself a claim worth attributing. Murdered and dismembered by him.

Deity · Egyptian · c. 2600 BCE

Osiris

also called Wesir, Asar

Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.

Alignment: Disputed
Rank: Lord of the Dead
First attested: The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
Named there as: Osiris
Texts naming it: 3
Powers attributed: 4

85attestedEgyptian

Deity · Egyptian · c. 3000 BCE

Set

also called Seth, Sutekh, Typhon (Greek identification), Setesh, Setekh, Suty

Murderer of Osiris and defender of the sun-barque — a god who was worshipped as a royal patron for two millennia before being recast as the enemy.

Alignment: Disputed
Rank: God of Storms and Disorder
First attested: The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
Named there as: Seth
Texts naming it: 3
Powers attributed: 4

85attestedEgyptian Greek

Where do they actually overlap?

Texts naming both

Powers credited to both

No shared office is recorded. Where two figures are said to be the same and share no job description at all, the identification is usually doing polemical work rather than descriptive work.

Common questions

Are Osiris and Set the same figure?

These two are set against one another in the texts, which is itself a claim worth attributing. Murdered and dismembered by him. ColossiansOne records the link rather than asserting the identity: where texts disagree about whether two names denote one figure, the disagreement is what gets shown.

Which is older, Osiris or Set?

Set is the older name: first attested around c. 3000 BCE, against c. 2600 BCE for Osiris. Where the two dates are far apart, that gap is the whole reason the pair is worth comparing.

Do any texts name both Osiris and Set?

Yes — 3 texts name both. A single text naming both figures is the strongest evidence available here that its author treated them as distinct, whatever later writers did with the pair.

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