For the ancient Egyptians, the colour black symbolized both death and the underworld on the one hand, and fertility, resurrection, and the fullness of life on the other. (April McDevitt Color in Ancient Egyptian Mythology) Likely, this association derived from the rich black, alluvial soil left after the flooding of the Nile. Herodotus (2.12) observed that the Egyptians drew a distinction between the habitable area of the Nile Valley, and the dry, barren wastes of the desert which surrounded them, calling the first Kemet "The Black Land", and the latter Deshret or the "Red Land", and Plutarch attests that this was the name that they used in referring to their land: "Egypt, moreover, which has the blackest of soils, they call by the same name as the black portion of the eye, Khemia." (On Isis and Osiris 33)
Because Osiris was connected with the flooding of the Nile and the rich black soil that it left behind, he was naturally depicted with a dark complexion (On Isis and Osiris 22) as we often see in funerary monuments, for instance that of Rameses IX or the basalt statue from the tomb of Psamtik. Further, he was called Kem "The Black One", Kem Ho "He of the Black Face", and Kem Wer "The Great Black One". (E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary)
Dionysos could also be depicted in a similar manner. For instance, at Eleutherai, Dionysos was said to have appeared to the daughters of the King in the guise of a dark goat, after which he was called Melanaigis "He of the Black Goat Skin". (Suida, Lexicon s.v. Melan). Additionally, Dionysos was known as Khthonios or "He Who is Beneath the Earth" as well as Nyktelios "The Nocturnal One", and Nyktipolos "The Night-Stalker". Additionally, Polemon speaks of a Dionysos Morychos or "Dark Dionysos" worshipped at Syracuse.
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