'I'he origins of Isis, who in the later periods of history was to become Egypt’s most important goddess, are shrouded in obscurity. Unlike the situation with so many deities, no town in Egypt claimed to be her place of origin or the location of her burial and there are actually no certain attestations of her before the 5th dynasty. Yet she is clearly of great importance in the Pyramid Texts where she appears over 80 times assisting the deceased king.
In the funerary texts of later periods her protective and sustaining roles were extended to nobles and commoners and her power and appeal grew to the point that she eventually eclipsed Osiris himself and was venerated by virtually every Egyptian. As time passed, and her importance grew, Isis merged with many other goddesses including Astarte, Bastet, Nut, Renenutet and Sothis, but her most important native syncretism was with Hathor from whom she took many of her iconographic attributes and mythological characteristics. Compared with some of Egypt’s early cosmic goddesses, the mythological roles played by Isis are relatively restricted, yet they are immensely important roles which together personified her as a goddess of great power whose relationship with her followers was a personal one extending from this life into the afterlife itself.
Sister-wife of Osiris: According to the theology of the Heliopolitan sun cult, Isis and Osiris were both the children of Geb and Nut (see p. 18), but Isis became the wife of her brother and assisted him in ruling Egypt during his mythological kingship on earth. The myths concerning the two deities are extensive, and the fullest account is found in Plutarch’s De hide et Osiride, but after Osiris’ death and dismemberment at the hands of his enemy Seth, Isis, along with her sister Nephthys, mourned inconsolably and began to search for her husband. Eventually the goddess found her husband’s scattered parts and reunited his body (or in another version, she found his body enclosed in the trunk of a tree). Through her magic Isis revivified the sexual member of Osiris and became pregnant by him, eventually giving birth to their child, Horus. This underlying mythological role as the wife of Osiris is the basis of the importance of the goddess in all of her other aspects.
Mother and protector of Horus: A number of myths elaborate how Isis fled from Seth to the marshes of the Delta where she gave birth to her son Horus (see p. 201) at Khemnis or Akh-bity which means ‘papyrus thicket of the king of Lower Egypt’. The Egyptians made literally hundreds of thousands of statues and amulets of the infant Horus nursing on his mother’s lap in celebration of this mythic mother-child relationship showing the importance of the goddess’s role as mother of Horus. After the birth of Horus various dangers threatened the young god, but throughout them Isis steadfastly cared for her son. She gained healing for him in one instance from a potentially lethal scorpion sting, which became the mythological basis for her healing powers and those associated with the so-called cippi or healing plaques of Horus the child. Isis continued to nurture and protect Horus until he was old enough to avenge his father and gain his rightful inheritance as king of all Egypt.
Mother of the king: As the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, Isis was also the symbolic mother if the king who symbolically was the incarnation of :he latter god. As early as the Pyramid Texts it is .-aid that the king drinks milk from the breasts of his 'mother’ Isis (PT 2089, etc.), and pharaohs of the New Kingdom and later periods had themselves depicted verbally and visually as the son of Isis, liecause the goddess’s name was written by means if the hieroglyphic sign for ‘seat’ or ‘throne’, it is possible that she originally was the personification if the power of the throne. Though many scholars feel that this may have been a later development, ' line have stressed that among some African tribes • he tlirone of the chieftain is known as the mother of he king, and this anthropological insight fits well .. ith what we know of the goddess.
Loddessof cosmic associations: Although not orig-.nally a cosmic goddess, the great importance of nevertheless led to several cosmic associations jeing made for her. She assumed the role of the ¦pye’ of Re and according to Plutarch she was also . enerated as a moon goddess, though it is more dif-:':cult to find substantiation for this claim. Isis was, .'.owever, closely equated with the star Sirius, just as >siris was equated with the constellation Orion. In •his role she merged with the goddess Sothis and .%as sometimes called Isis-Sothis. At the height of -.r development, as may be seen in the hymns dedi-.•ated to her in her temple at Philae, Isis was also ..-cnbed powers of cosmic proportions. One hymn, which is not atypical, states that ‘She is the Lady of Heaven, Earth and the iNetherworld, having brought them into existence...'; and in a late aretalogy or list of her virtues, Isis is made to say, ‘I separated the Earth from the Heaven, I showed the paths of the stars, 1 regulated the course of the sun and moon.'
Great of magic: Magic is central to Isis’ many roles, for it is through magic that Osiris was revived, Horus conceived and protected, and the deceased - whether royal or commoner - assisted in the afterlife. The magic of Isis was also invoked in many spells for protection and healing - often imploring the goddess to come to the aid of a child or individual as if he or she were Horus himself. Most of the myths relating to the goddess stress her magical ability and one in particular - in which she learns the true name of Re - stresses her position as the greatest of the gods in terms of magical knowledge and power. In this myth Isis creates a snake which bites Re, and the stricken sun god is only healed of the snake’s venom when he reveals his true name to her and thus further enhances her power.
Mourner, sustainer and protector of the deceased: Along with her sister Nephthys, Isis represents the archetypal image of the mourner in Egyptian literature and art. Both goddesses are mythically equated with the kite, a bird of prey with a particularly shrill piercing cry which has been thought to have been suggestive of the cries of women wailing
The conception of Horus by Isis in the form of a hawk flying above the deceased Osiris. Isis is attended by the bifih goddess Hekel in the form of a frog at the foot of the funerary bier. Roman Period. Western roof chapel, temple of Hathor, Dendera.
The enthroned Isis (centre) and her son Homs receive offerings from the IHng The goddess's headdress incorporates both the hieroglyphic sign for the throne and the horned sun disk. Roman Period. Temple of Hathor, Dendera.
In mourning. The kite is also essentially a scavenging rather than hunting bird of prey that often wanders looking for carrion, and it is in this form that Isis was said to have searched for her murdered husband. The goddess was more than just a mourner, however, and through her great power Isis was able to function as the protector and sustainer of the deceased in the afterlife. Even in the Pyramid Texts she is said to care for the deceased, as she did for her own son Horus, and in the later periods of Egyptian history Isis becomes the supreme deity in this capacity, caring for the deceased in a personal way based on her character as a devoted mother.
Iconography
Isis is represented anthropomorphically in the form of a woman wearing a long sheath dress and crowned with either the hieroglyphic ‘throne’ sign which represents her name or, beginning in the 18th dynasty and most commonly in the later dynastic periods, with the horns and solar disk which she appropriated from Hathor. The attributes she fi'equently holds, the sistrum rattle and menal necklace, were also taken over from Hathor, but Isis often holds only the generic ankh sign and papyrus staff commonly depicted with other goddesses. While her most commonly depicted representational pose shows her standing upright, Isis is also depicted kneeling - often with her hand resting on the shen or eternity sign. In either of these positions the goddess may be shown in the guise of a mourner with one hand lifted to her face. Often her arms are outstretched and placed aimund the seated or standing figure of Osiris and sometimes her arms are winged. She is depicted in this manner on the sides or corners of royal sarcophagi of the 18th dynasty and in statues or representations where she shelters and supports Osiris. In one known instance a figure of Isis protecting an image of herself personifies the protective nature of the goddess. Isis may also be represented as a scorpion, in fully avian form, as a kite, and as a mother goddess she may be depicted
As a sow or in bovine form - in the latter case an analogue of Uathor or as the mother of the Apis bull. Finally, Isis could also be depicted in the form of a tree goddess, as in the tomb of Tuthmosis III in the Valley of the Kings where she appears as a personified tree, nursing the king at her breast which descends from one of the tree’s branches. Amuletic depictions of Isis - usually in anthropomorphic form - or the symbol often called the Isis knot and known by the Egyptians as the tyet, were frequently placed on the mummy from New Kingdom times, and the goddess’s protective power was doubtless utilized in amulets carried by many Egyptians in life also.
Worship
For a good part of Egyptian history it seems that Isis was not usually associated with any particular locality or worshipped in her own temples. Rather she was incorporated into the temples of other deities with whom she was associated. There are minor exceptions such as the chapel of Isis ‘Mistress of the Pyramid’ constructed at Giza in the 21.st dynasty. However, the first important temple l-mown to have been dedicated to the goddess, the Iseion - her temple at Behbeit el-Hagar in the eastern Delta - was not begun until the reign of N'ectanebo II in the 30th dynasty, and only completed under Ptolemy III. Even here, as in her other later sanctuaries, Isis was venerated along with Osiris and Horus as was probably the case in earlier shrines which existed on the site. Other important chapels and temples of Isis were built at Dendera where the goddess was honoured by Augustus with a. small independent sanctuary. This was at Deir el-Shelwit just south of Thebes where a small temple was also constructed for her in Roman times, and in her most famous temple on the island of Philae which was begun by Nectanebo I and grew under a series of Ptolemaic rulers and Roman emperors. The hymns inscribed there identify Isis with many other goddesses and show that she had successfully absorbed them as ‘Isis in all her manifestations’. She was thus invoked in many spells of the later dynasties often tailored to her own character, as in spells and love charms to make a woman love a man as Isis loved Osiris, or to make a woman hate her present partner as Isis hated Seth.
Her influence was amazingly widespread. There -.s as a temple of Isis at Byblos, where the goddess was equated with the local form of Astarte, from quite early times, though it is not known for certain whether the myth of Osiris’ body being washed ashore at that site and the subsequent visit of Isis predates actual Isis worship at Byblos or not. later, the worship of Isis became widespread in the Graeco-Roman worlds as one of the Eastern ’mystery religions’, and the Classical writer -Apuleius left a detailed description of the initiations into her cult. Evidence of veneration of the goddess
Has been found as far apart as Iraq and England, with temples being built to Isis in Athens and other Greek cities and later in many parts of the Roman Empire as well as in Rome itself The cult of Isis rivalled those of the traditional Greek and Roman gods, and its importance and persistence is seen in the fact that her worship continued at Philae until the 6th century ad - long after most of Egypt and the wider Roman world had been converted to Christianity.
The goddess his-Aphrodite
Combined the great Egyptian deity with the Greek goddess of love in a form which became popular througlwul much of the ancient Mediterranean world. Terracotta figurine, c. 100 BC. University of Leipzig Museum
This grey granite statue of lunit, spouse of the Theban god Montu, is the first knotvn rep resen tatiofi of this goddess. 18th dynasty.
Luxor Cachette statue.
Luxor Museum.
World History
