This article is about the ancient Egyptian goddess. For the militant organisation commonly abbreviated as ISIS, seeIslamic State. For other uses, seeIsis (disambiguation).
Isis
Composite image of Isis's most distinctive Egyptian iconography, based partly on images from thetomb of Nefertari
In the first millennium BCE,Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its southern neighborNubia built temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple atPhilae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. Her reputedmagical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to govern the natural world and wield power overfate itself.
In theHellenistic period (323–30 BCE), when Egypt was ruled and settled byGreeks, Isis was worshipped by Greeks and Egyptians, along with a new god,Serapis. Their worship diffused into the widerMediterranean world. Isis's Greek devotees ascribed to her traits taken fromGreek deities, such as the invention of marriage and the protection of ships at sea. As Hellenistic culture was absorbed byRome in the first century BCE, thecult of Isis became a part ofRoman religion. Her devotees were a small proportion of theRoman Empire's population but were found all across its territory. Her following developed distinctivefestivals such as theNavigium Isidis, as well asinitiation ceremonies resembling those of otherGreco-Roman mystery cults. Some of her devotees said she encompassed all feminine divine powers in the world.
The worship of Isis was ended by the rise ofChristianity in the fourth through sixth centuries CE. Her worship may have influenced Christian beliefs and practices such as theveneration of Mary, but the evidence for this influence is ambiguous and often controversial. Isis continues to appear inWestern culture, particularly inesotericism andmodern paganism, often as apersonification of nature or the feminine aspect of divinity.
Many scholars have focused on Isis's name in trying to determine her origins. HerEgyptian name was written as𓊨𓏏𓆇𓁐 (ꜣst), the pronunciation of which changed over time:Rūsat >Rūsaʾ >ʾŪsaʾ >ʾĒsə,[2] which becameⲎⲤⲈ (Ēse) in theCoptic form of Egyptian,Wusa in theMeroitic language of Nubia, andἾσις, on which her modern name is based, inGreek.[14][Note 3] Thehieroglyphic writing of her name incorporates the sign for a throne, which Isis also wears on her head as a sign of her identity. The symbol serves as aphonogram, spelling thest sounds in her name, but it may have also represented a link with actual thrones. The Egyptian term for a throne was alsost and may have shared a commonetymology with Isis's name. Therefore, the EgyptologistKurt Sethe suggested she was originally a personification of thrones.[15]Henri Frankfort agreed, believing that the throne was considered the king's mother, and thus a goddess, because of its power to make a man into a king.[16] Other scholars, such as Jürgen Osing and Klaus P. Kuhlmann, have disputed this interpretation, because of dissimilarities between Isis's name and the word for a throne[15] or a lack of evidence that the throne was ever deified.[17]
Sculpture of a woman, possibly Isis, in a pose of mourning; fifteenth or fourteenth century BCE
Isis is part of theEnnead of Heliopolis, a family of nine deities descended from the creator god,Atum orRa. She and her siblings—Osiris,Set, andNephthys—are the last generation of the Ennead, born toGeb, god of the earth, andNut, goddess of the sky. The creator god, the world's original ruler, passes down his authority through the male generations of the Ennead, so that Osiris becomes king. Isis, who is Osiris'swife as well as his sister, is his queen.[21]
Set kills Osiris and, in several versions of the story, dismembers his corpse. Isis and Nephthys, along with other deities such asAnubis, search for the pieces of their brother's body and reassemble it. Their efforts are the mythic prototype formummification and otherancient Egyptian funerary practices.[22] According to some texts, they must also protect Osiris's body from further desecration by Set or his servants.[23] Isis is the epitome of a mourning widow. Her and Nephthys's love and grief for their brother help restore him to life, as does Isis's recitation ofmagical spells.[24]Funerary texts contain speeches by Isis in which she expresses her sorrow at Osiris's death, her sexual desire for him, and even anger that he has left her. All these emotions play a part in his revival, as they are meant to stir him into action.[25] Finally, Isis restores breath and life to Osiris's body and copulates with him, conceiving their son,Horus.[22] After this point Osiris lives on only in theDuat, or underworld. But by producing a son and heir to avenge his death and carry out funerary rites for him, Isis has ensured that her husband will endure in the afterlife.[26]
Isis's role inafterlife beliefs was based on that in the myth. She helped to restore the souls of deceased humans to wholeness as she had done for Osiris. Like other goddesses, such asHathor, she also acted as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment.[27] Thus, like Hathor, she sometimes took the form ofImentet, the goddess of the west, who welcomed the deceased soul into the afterlife as her child.[28] But for much of Egyptian history, male deities such as Osiris were believed to provide the regenerative powers, including sexual potency, that were crucial for rebirth. Isis was thought to merely assist by stimulating this power.[27] Feminine divine powers became more important in afterlife beliefs in the late New Kingdom.[29] Various Ptolemaic funerary texts emphasize that Isis took the active role in Horus's conception by sexually stimulating her inert husband,[30] some tomb decoration from theRoman period in Egypt depicts Isis in a central role in the afterlife,[31] and a funerary text from that era suggests that women were thought able to join the retinue of Isis and Nephthys in the afterlife.[32]
Mother goddess
Isis nursingHorus, a sculpture from the 7th century BCE
Isis is treated as the mother of Horus even in the earliest copies of the Pyramid Texts.[33] Yet there are signs that Hathor was originally regarded as his mother,[34] and other traditions make an elder form of Horus the son of Nut and a sibling of Isis and Osiris.[35] Isis may only have come to be Horus's mother as the Osiris myth took shape during the Old Kingdom,[34] but through her relationship with him she came to be seen as the epitome of maternal devotion.[36]
In the developed form of the myth, Isis gives birth to Horus, after a long pregnancy and a difficult labor, in thepapyrus thickets of the Nile Delta. As her child grows she must protect him from Set and many other hazards—snakes, scorpions, and simple illness.[37] In some texts, Isis travels among humans and must seek their help. According to one such story, seven minor scorpion deities travel with and guard her. They take revenge on a wealthy woman who has refused to help Isis by stinging the woman's son, making it necessary for the goddess to heal the blameless child.[38] Isis's reputation as a compassionate deity, willing to relieve human suffering, contributed greatly to her appeal.[39]
Isis continues to assist her son when he challenges Set to claim the kingship that Set has usurped,[40] although mother and son are sometimes portrayed in conflict, as when Horus beheads Isis and she replaces her original head with that of a cow—anorigin myth explaining the cow-horn headdress that Isis wears.[41]
Isis's maternal aspect extended to other deities as well. TheCoffin Texts from theMiddle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) say theFour sons of Horus, funerary deities who were thought to protect the internal organs of the deceased, were the offspring of Isis and the elder form of Horus.[42] In the same era, Horus was syncretized with thefertility godMin, so Isis was regarded as Min's mother.[43] A form of Min known as Kamutef, "bull of his mother", who represented the cyclical regeneration of the gods and of kingship, was said to impregnate his mother to engender himself.[44] Thus, Isis was also regarded as Min's consort.[45] The same ideology of kingship may lie behind a tradition, found in a few texts, that Horus raped Isis.[46][47]Amun, the foremost Egyptian deity during the Middle and New Kingdoms, also took on the role of Kamutef, and when he was in this form, Isis often acted as his consort.[45]Apis, a bull that was worshipped as a living god atMemphis, was said to be Isis's son, fathered by a form of Osiris known as Osiris-Apis. The biological mother of each Apis bull was thus known as the "Isis cow".[48] Isis was said to be the mother ofBastet byRa.[49]
A story in theWestcar Papyrus from the Middle Kingdom includes Isis among a group of goddesses who serve as midwives during the delivery of three future kings.[50] She serves a similar role in New Kingdom texts that describe the divinely ordained births of reigning pharaohs.[51]
In the Westcar Papyrus, Isis calls out the names of the three children as they are born. Barbara S. Lesko sees this story as a sign that Isis had the power to predict or influence future events, as did other deities who presided over birth,[45] such asShai andRenenutet.[52] Texts from much later times call Isis "mistress of life, ruler of fate and destiny"[45] and indicate she has control over Shai and Renenutet, just as other great deities such as Amun were said to do in earlier eras of Egyptian history. By governing these deities, Isis determined the length and quality of human lives.[52]
Goddess of kingship and protection of the kingdom
Isis holds the king,Seti I, in her lap, thirteenth century BCE
Horus was equated with each living pharaoh and Osiris with the pharaoh's deceased predecessors. Isis was therefore the mythological mother and wife of kings. In the Pyramid Texts her primary importance to the king was as one of the deities who protected and assisted him in the afterlife. Her prominence in royal ideology grew in the New Kingdom.[53] Temple reliefs from that time on show the king nursing at Isis's breast; her milk not only healed her child, but symbolized his divine right to rule.[54] Royal ideology increasingly emphasized the importance of queens as earthly counterparts of the goddesses who served as wives to the king and mothers to his heirs. Initially the most important of these goddesses was Hathor, whose attributes in art were incorporated into queens' crowns. But because of her own mythological links with queenship, Isis too was given the same titles and regalia as human queens.[55]
Isis's actions in protecting Osiris against Set became part of a larger, more warlike aspect of her character.[56] New Kingdom funerary texts portray Isis in the barque of Ra as he sails through the underworld, acting as one of several deities who subdue Ra's archenemy,Apep.[57] Kings also called upon herprotective magical power against human enemies. In her Ptolemaic temple atPhilae, which lay near the frontier withNubian peoples who raided Egypt, she was described as the protectress of the entire nation, more effective in battle than "millions of soldiers", supporting Ptolemaic kings and Roman emperors in their efforts to subdue Egypt's enemies.[56]
Goddess of magic and wisdom
Isis was also known for hermagical power, which enabled her to revive Osiris and to protect and heal Horus, and for her cunning.[58] By virtue of her magical knowledge, she was said to be "more clever than a million gods".[59][60] In several episodes in the New Kingdom story "The Contendings of Horus and Set", Isis uses these abilities to outmaneuver Set during his conflict with her son. On one occasion, she transforms into a young woman who tells Set she is involved in an inheritance dispute similar to Set's usurpation of Osiris's crown. When Set calls this situation unjust, Isis taunts him, saying he has judged himself to be in the wrong.[60] In later texts, she uses her powers of transformation to fight and destroy Set and his followers.[58]
Many stories about Isis appear ashistoriolae, prologues to magical texts that describe mythic events related to the goal that the spell aims to accomplish.[19] In one spell, Isis creates a snake that bites Ra, who is older and greater than she is, and makes him ill with its venom. She offers to cure Ra if he will tell her histrue, secret name—a piece of knowledge that carries with it incomparable power. After much coercion, Ra tells her his name, which she passes on to Horus, bolstering his royal authority.[60] The story may be meant as an origin story to explain why Isis's magical ability surpasses that of other deities, but because she uses magic to subdue Ra, the story seems to treat her as having such abilities even before learning his name.[61]
Sky goddess
Many of the roles Isis acquired gave her an important position in the sky.[62] Passages in the Pyramid Texts connect Isis closely withSopdet, the goddess representing the starSirius, whose relationship with her husbandSah—the constellationOrion—and their sonSopdu parallels Isis's relations with Osiris and Horus. Sirius'sheliacal rising, just before the start of theNile flood, gave Sopdet a close connection with the flood and the resulting growth of plants.[63] Partly because of her relationship with Sopdet, Isis was also linked with the flood,[64] which was sometimes equated with the tears she shed for Osiris.[65]
By Ptolemaic times she was connected with rain, which Egyptian texts call a "Nile in the sky"; with the sun as the protector of Ra's barque;[66] and with the moon, possibly because she was linked with the Greek lunar goddessArtemis by a shared connection with an Egyptian fertility goddess,Bastet.[67] In hymns inscribed at Philae she is called the "Lady of Heaven" whose dominion over the sky parallels Osiris's rule over the Duat and Horus's kingship on earth.[68]
Universal goddess
Isis, crowned with the lotus and bearing the sceptre. An intaglio, of Ptolemaic date, in sardonyx.
In Ptolemaic times Isis's sphere of influence could include the entire cosmos.[68] As the deity that protected Egypt and endorsed its king, she had power over all nations, and as the provider of rain, she enlivened the natural world.[69] The Philae hymn that initially calls her ruler of the sky goes on to expand her authority, so at its climax her dominion encompasses the sky, earth, and Duat. It says her power over nature nourishes humans, the blessed dead, and the gods.[68] Other, Greek-language hymns from Ptolemaic Egypt call her "the beautiful essence of all the gods".[70] In the course of Egyptian history, many deities, major and minor, had been described in similar grand terms. Amun was most commonly described this way in the New Kingdom, whereas in Roman Egypt such terms tended to be applied to Isis.[71] Such texts do not deny the existence of other deities but treat them as aspects of the supreme deity, a type of theology sometimes called "summodeism".[72][73]
In the Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman Periods, many temples contained acreation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation to give the primary roles to local deities.[74] At Philae, Isis is described as the creator in the same way that older texts speak of the work of the godPtah,[68] who was said to have designed the world with his intellect and sculpted it into being.[75] Like him, Isis formed the cosmos "through what her heart conceived and her hands created".[68]
Like other deities throughout Egyptian history, Isis had many forms in her individual cult centers, and each cult center emphasized different aspects of her character. Local Isis cults focused on the distinctive traits of their deity more than on her universality, whereas some Egyptian hymns to Isis treat other goddesses in cult centers from across Egypt and the Mediterranean as manifestations of her. A text in her temple atDendera says "in eachnome it is she who is in every town, in every nome with her son Horus."[76]
Isis could be depicted either wearing a headdress of the horns and a sun disk, similar or identical to howHathor was depicted, or a throne symbol used in her name, or a headdress that includes both; she was also sometimes depicted wearing avulture crown.
InAncient Egyptian art, Isis was most commonly depicted as a woman with the typical attributes of a goddess: a sheath dress, a staff of papyrus in one hand, and anankh sign in the other. Her original headdress was the throne sign used in writing her name. She and Nephthys often appear together, particularly when mourning Osiris's death, supporting him on his throne, or protecting thesarcophagi of the dead. In these situations their arms are often flung across their faces, in a gesture of mourning, or outstretched around Osiris or the deceased as a sign of their protective role.[77] In these circumstances they were often depicted askites or women with the wings of kites. This form may be inspired by a similarity between the kites' calls and the cries of wailing women,[78] or by a metaphor likening the kite's search for carrion to the goddesses' search for their dead brother.[77] Isis sometimes appeared in other animal forms: as a sow, representing her maternal character; as acow, particularly when linked with Apis; or as a scorpion.[77] She also took the form of a tree or a woman emerging from a tree, sometimes offering food and water to deceased souls. This form alluded to the maternal nourishment she provided.[79]
Beginning in the New Kingdom, thanks to the close links between Isis and Hathor, Isis took on Hathor's attributes, such as asistrum rattle and a headdress of cow horns enclosing a sun disk. Sometimes both headdresses were combined, so the throne glyph sat atop the sun disk.[77] In the same era, she began to wear the insignia of a human queen, such as a vulture-shaped crown on her head and the royaluraeus, or rearing cobra, on her brow.[55] In Ptolemaic and Roman times, statues and figurines of Isis often showed her in aGreek sculptural style, with attributes taken from Egyptian and Greek tradition.[80][81] Some of these images reflected her linkage with other goddesses in novel ways. Isis-Thermuthis, a combination of Isis and Renenutet who represented agricultural fertility, was depicted in this style as a woman with the lower body of a snake. Figurines of a woman wearing an elaborate headdress andexposing her genitals may represent Isis-Aphrodite.[82][Note 4]
Thetyet symbol, a looped shape similar to theankh, came to be seen as Isis's emblem at least as early as the New Kingdom, though it existed long before.[84] It was often made of redjasper and likened to Isis's blood. Used as a funeraryamulet, it was said to confer her protection on the wearer.[85]
An illustration of Isis based on a painting in the tomb ofSeti I
Isis with a combination of throne-glyph and cow horns, as well as a vulture headdress,Temple of Kalabsha, first century BCE or first century CE
Winged Isis at the foot of the sarcophagus ofRamesses III, twelfth century BCE
Although normally depicted with Egyptian pale skin, sometimes Isis is depicted with green skin like her husband Osiris.
Despite her significance in the Osiris myth, Isis was originally a minor deity in the ideology surrounding the living king. She played only a small role, for instance, in theDramatic Ramesseum Papyrus, the script for royal rituals performed in the reign ofSenusret I in the Middle Kingdom.[86] Her importance grew during the New Kingdom,[87] when she was increasingly connected with Hathor and the human queen.[88]
The early first millennium BCE saw an increased emphasis on the family triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus and an explosive growth in Isis's popularity. In the fourth century BCE,Nectanebo I of theThirtieth Dynasty claimed Isis as his patron deity, tying her still more closely to political power.[89] TheKingdom of Kush, which ruled Nubia from the eighth century BCE to the fourth century CE, absorbed and adapted the Egyptian ideology surrounding kingship. It equated Isis with thekandake, the queen orqueen mother of the Kushite king.[90]
ThePtolemaic Greek kings, who ruled Egypt as pharaohs from 305 to 30 BCE, developed an ideology that linked them with both Egyptian andGreek deities, to strengthen their claim to the throne in the eyes of their Greek and Egyptian subjects. For centuries before,Greek colonists and visitors to Egypt had drawn parallels between Egyptian deities and their own, in a process known asinterpretatio graeca.[91]Herodotus, a Greek who wrote about Egypt in the fifth century BCE, likened Isis toDemeter, whose mythical search for her daughterPersephone resembled Isis's search for Osiris. Demeter was one of the few Greek deities to be widely adopted by Egyptians in Ptolemaic times, so the similarity between her and Isis provided a link between the two cultures.[92] In other cases, Isis was linked withAphrodite through the sexual aspects of her character.[93] Building on these traditions, the first two Ptolemies promoted the cult of the new godSerapis, who combined aspects of Osiris andApis with those of Greek gods such asZeus andDionysus. Isis, portrayed in aHellenized form, was regarded as the consort of Serapis as well as of Osiris.Ptolemy II and his sister and wifeArsinoe II developed aruler cult around themselves, so that they were worshipped in the same temples as Serapis and Isis, and Arsinoe was likened to both Isis and Aphrodite.[94] Some later Ptolemaic queens identified themselves still more closely with Isis.Cleopatra III, in the second century BCE, used Isis's name in place of her own in inscriptions, andCleopatra VII, the last ruler of Egypt before it was annexed byRome, used the epithet "the new Isis".[95]
Down to the end of the New Kingdom, Isis's cult was closely tied to those of male deities such as Osiris, Min, or Amun. She was commonly worshipped alongside them as their mother or consort, and she was especially widely worshipped as the mother of various local forms of Horus.[96] Nevertheless, she had independent priesthoods at some sites[97] and at least one temple of her own, at Osiris's cult center ofAbydos, during the late New Kingdom.[98]
The earliest known major temples to Isis were the Iseion atBehbeit el-Hagar in northern Egypt and Philae in the far south. Both began construction during the Thirtieth Dynasty and were completed or enlarged by Ptolemaic kings.[99] Thanks to Isis's widespread fame, Philae drew pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.[100] Many other temples of Isis sprang up in Ptolemaic times, ranging fromAlexandria andCanopus on the Mediterranean coast toEgypt's frontier with Nubia.[101] A series of temples of Isis stood in that region, stretching from Philae south toMaharraqa, and were sites of worship for both Egyptians and various Nubian peoples.[102] The Nubians of Kush built their own temples to Isis at sites as far south asWad ban Naqa,[103] including one in their capital,Meroe.[104]
The most frequent temple rite for any deity was the daily offering ritual, in which priests clothed the deity'scult image and offered it food.[105] In Roman times, temples to Isis in Egypt could be built either in Egyptian style, in which the cult image was in a secluded sanctuary accessible only to priests, and in a Greco-Roman style in which devotees were allowed to see the cult image.[106] Greek and Egyptian culture were highly intermingled by this time, and there may have been no ethnic separation between Isis's worshippers.[107] The same people may have prayed to Isis outside Egyptian-style temples and in front of her statue inside Greek-style temples.[106]
Temples celebrated many festivals in the course of the year, some nationwide and some very local.[108] An elaborate series of rites were performed all across Egypt for Osiris during the month ofKhoiak,[109] and Isis and Nephthys were prominent in these rites at least as early as the New Kingdom.[110] In Ptolemaic times, two women acted out the roles of Isis and Nephthys during Khoiak, singing or chanting in mourning for their dead brother. Their chants are preserved in theFestival Songs of Isis and Nephthys andLamentations of Isis and Nephthys.[110][111]
Festivals dedicated to Isis eventually developed. In Roman times, Egyptians across the country celebrated her birthday, the Amesysia, by carrying the local cult statue of Isis through their fields, probably celebrating her powers of fertility.[112] The priests at Philae held a festival every ten days when the cult statue of Isis visited the neighboring island ofBigeh, which was said to be Osiris's place of burial, and the priests performed funerary rites for him. The cult statue also visited the neighboring temples to the south, even during the last centuries of activity at Philae when those temples were run by Nubian peoples outside Roman rule.[113]
Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, including Egypt, during the fourth and fifth centuries CE.Egyptian temple cults died out, gradually and at various times, from a combination of lack of funds and Christian hostility.[114] Isis's temple at Philae, supported by its Nubian worshippers, still had an organized priesthood and regular festivals until at least the mid-fifth century CE, making it the last fully functioning temple in Egypt.[115][Note 5]
Funerary
Isis, left, andNephthys askites near the bier of amummy, thirteenth century BCE
In many spells in the Pyramid Texts, Isis and Nephthys help the deceased king reach the afterlife. In the Coffin Texts from the Middle Kingdom, Isis appears still more frequently, though in these texts Osiris is credited with reviving the dead more often than she is. New Kingdom sources such as theBook of the Dead describe Isis as protecting deceased souls as they face the dangers in the Duat. They also describe Isis as a member of the divine councils that judge souls' moral righteousness before admitting them into the afterlife, and she appears in vignettes standing beside Osiris as he presides over this tribunal.[117]
Isis with her wings spread on the footend of the outer coffin ofTutankhamun.
Isis and Nephthys took part in funeral ceremonies, where two wailing women, much like those in the festival at Abydos, mourned the deceased as the two goddesses mourned Osiris.[118] Isis was frequently shown or alluded to in funerary equipment: on sarcophagi andcanopic chests as one of the four goddesses who protected the Four Sons of Horus, in tomb art offering her enlivening milk to the dead, and in thetyet amulets that were often placed on mummies to ensure that Isis's power would shield them from harm.[119] Late funerary texts prominently featured her mourning for Osiris, and one such text, one of theBooks of Breathing, was said to have been written by her for Osiris's benefit.[120] In Nubian funerary religion, Isis was regarded as more significant than her husband, because she was the active partner while he only passively received the offerings she made to sustain him in the afterlife.[121]
Popular worship
Unlike many Egyptian deities, Isis was rarely addressed in prayers,[122] or invoked inpersonal names, before the end of the New Kingdom.[123] From the Late Period on, she became one of the deities most commonly mentioned in these sources, which often refer to her kindly character and her willingness to answer those who call upon her for help.[124] Hundreds of thousands of amulets and votive statues of Isis nursing Horus were made during the first millennium BCE,[125] and in Roman Egypt she was among the deities most commonly represented in household religious art, such as figurines and panel paintings.[126]
Isis was prominent in magical texts from the Middle Kingdom onward. The dangers Horus faces in childhood are a frequent theme in magical healing spells, in which Isis's efforts to heal him are extended to cure any patient. In many of these spells, Isis forces Ra to help Horus by declaring that she will stop the sun in its course through the sky unless her son is cured.[127] Other spells equated pregnant women with Isis to ensure that they would deliver their children successfully.[128]
Egyptian magic began to incorporate Christian concepts as Christianity was established in Egypt, but Egyptian and Greek deities continued to appear in spells long after their temple worship had ceased.[129] Spells that may date to the sixth, seventh, or eighth centuries CE invoke the name of Isis alongside Christian figures.[130]
Cults based in a particular city or nation were the norm across the ancient world until the mid- to late first millennium BCE, when increased contact between different cultures allowed some cults to spread more widely. Greeks were aware of Egyptian deities, including Isis, at least as early as theArchaic Period (c. 700–480 BCE), and her first known temple in Greece was built during or before the fourth century BCE by Egyptians living inAthens. Theconquests of Alexander the Great late in that century created Hellenistic kingdoms around the Mediterranean and Near East, including Ptolemaic Egypt, and put Greek and non-Greek religions in much closer contact. The resultingdiffusion of cultures allowed many religious traditions to spread across the Hellenistic world in the last three centuries BCE. The new mobile cults adapted greatly to appeal to people from a variety of cultures. The cults of Isis and Serapis were among those that expanded in this way.[131]
Spread by merchants and other Mediterranean travelers, the cults of Isis and Serapis were established in Greek port cities at the end of the fourth century BCE and expanded throughout Greece and Asia Minor during the third and second centuries. The Greek island ofDelos was an early cult center for both deities, and its status as a trading center made it a springboard for the Egyptian cults to diffuse into Italy.[132] Isis and Serapis were also worshipped at scattered sites in theSeleucid Empire, the Hellenistic kingdom in the Middle East, as far east asIran, though they disappeared from the region as the Seleucids lost their eastern territory to theParthian Empire.[133]
Greeks regarded Egyptian religion as exotic and sometimes bizarre, yet full of ancient wisdom.[134] Like other cults from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, the cult of Isis attracted Greeks and Romans by playing upon its exotic origins,[135] but the form it took after reaching Greece was heavily Hellenized.[136]
Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE.[137] It was one of many cults that were introduced to Rome as theRoman Republic's territory expanded in the last centuries BCE. Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of definingRoman cultural identity amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion.[138] In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on theCapitoline Hill, at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE.[137] The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them.[139] In the 50s and 40s BCE, when thecrisis of the Roman Republic made many Romans fear thatpeace among the gods was being disrupted, theRoman Senate destroyed these shrines,[140][141] although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.[137]
Egyptian cults faced further hostility during theFinal War of the Roman Republic (32–30 BCE), when Rome, led byOctavian, the futureemperor Augustus, foughtEgypt under Cleopatra VII.[142] After Octavian's victory, he banned shrines to Isis and Serapis within thepomerium, the city's innermost, sacred boundary, but allowed them in parts of the city outside thepomerium, thus marking Egyptian deities as non-Roman but acceptable to Rome.[143] Despite being temporarily expelled from Rome during the reign ofTiberius (14–37 CE),[Note 6] the Egyptian cults gradually became an accepted part of the Roman religious landscape. TheFlavian emperors in the late first century CE treated Serapis and Isis as patrons of their rule in much the same manner as traditional Roman deities such asJupiter andMinerva.[145] Even as it was being integrated into Roman culture, Isis's worship developed new features that emphasized its Egyptian background.[146][147]
The cults also expanded into Rome's westernprovinces, beginning along the Mediterranean coast in early imperial times. At their peak in the late second and early third centuries CE, Isis and Serapis were worshipped in most towns across the western empire, though without much presence in the countryside.[148] Their temples were found fromPetra andPalmyra, in theArabian andSyrian provinces, toItalica inSpain andLondinium inBritain.[149] By this time they were on a comparable footing with native Roman deities.[150]
Roles
Roman statue of Isis, first or second century CE. She holds asistrum and a pitcher of water, although these attributes were added in a seventeenth-century renovation.[151]
Elaborating upon Isis's role as a wife and mother in the Osiris myth, aretalogies call her the inventor of marriage and parenthood. She was invoked to protect women in childbirth and, inancient Greek novels such as theEphesian Tale, to protect their virginity.[157] Some ancient texts called her the patroness of women in general.[158][159] Her cult may have served to promote women's autonomy in a limited way, with Isis's power and authority serving as a precedent, but in myth she was devoted to, and never fully independent of, her husband and son. The aretalogies show ambiguous attitudes toward women's independence: one says Isis made women equal to men, whereas another says she made women subordinate to their husbands.[160][161]
Isis was often characterized as a Moon goddess, paralleling the solar characteristics of Serapis.[162] She was also seen as a cosmic goddess more generally. Various texts claim she organized the behavior of the Sun, Moon, and stars, governing time and the seasons which, in turn, guaranteed the fertility of the earth.[163] These texts also credit her with inventing agriculture, establishing laws, and devising or promoting other elements of human society. This idea derives from older Greek traditions about the role of various Greek deities andculture heroes, including Demeter, in establishing civilization.[164]
She also oversaw seas and harbors. Sailors left inscriptions calling upon her to ensure the safety and good fortune of their voyages. In this role she was calledIsis Pelagia, "Isis of the Sea", orIsis Pharia, referring to a sail or to the island of Pharos, site of theLighthouse of Alexandria.[165] This form of Isis, which emerged in Hellenistic times, may have been inspired by Egyptian images of Isis in a barque, as well as by Greek deities who protected seafaring, such as Aphrodite.[166][167]Isis Pelagia developed an added significance in Rome. Rome's food supply was dependent ongrain shipments from its provinces, especially Egypt. Isis therefore guaranteed fertile harvests and protected the ships that carried the resulting food across the seas—and thus ensured thewell-being of the empire as a whole.[168] Her protection of the state was said to extend to Rome's armies, much as it was in Ptolemaic Egypt, and she was sometimes calledIsis Invicta, "Unconquered Isis".[169] Her roles were so numerous that she came to be calledmyrionymos, "one with countless names," andpanthea, "all-goddess".[170]
Both Plutarch and a later philosopher,Proclus, mentioned aveiled statue of the Egyptian goddessNeith, whom they conflated with Isis, citing it as an example of her universality and enigmatic wisdom.[171] It bore the words "I am all that has been and is and will be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle."[172][Note 7]
Isis was also said to benefit her followers in the afterlife, which was not much emphasized in Greek and Roman religion.[175]The Golden Ass and inscriptions left by worshippers of Isis suggest that many of her followers thought she would guarantee them a better afterlife in return for their devotion. They characterized this afterlife inconsistently. Some said they would benefit from Osiris's enlivening water while others expected to sail to theFortunate Isles of Greek tradition.[176]
As in Egypt, Isis was said to have power over fate, which in traditional Greek religion was a power not even the gods could defy. Valentino Gasparini says this control over destiny binds together Isis's disparate traits. She governs the cosmos, yet she also relieves people of their comparatively trivial misfortunes, and her influence extends into the realm of death, which is "individual and universal at the same time".[177]
Relationships with other deities
Isis welcomingIo to Egypt, from a fresco atPompeii, first century CE
More than a dozen Egyptian deities were worshipped outside Egypt in Hellenistic and Roman times in a series of interrelated cults, though many were fairly minor.[178] Of the most important of these deities, Serapis was closely connected with Isis and often appeared with her in art, but Osiris remained central to her myth and prominent in her rituals.[179] Temples to Isis and Serapis sometimes stood next to each other, but it was rare for a single temple to be dedicated to both.[180] Osiris, as a dead deity unlike the immortal gods of Greece, seemed strange to Greeks and played only a minor role in Egyptian cults in Hellenistic times. In Roman times he became, like Dionysus, a symbol of a joyous afterlife, and the Isis cult increasingly focused on him.[181] Horus, often under the nameHarpocrates, also appeared in Isis's temples as her son by Osiris or Serapis. He absorbed traits from Greek deities such asApollo and served as a god of the sun and of crops.[182] Another member of the group was Anubis, who was linked to the Greek godHermes in his Hellenized formHermanubis.[183] Isis was also sometimes said to have learned her wisdom from, or even be the daughter of,Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge, who was known in the Greco-Roman world asHermes Trismegistus.[184][185]
Isis also had an extensive network of connections with Greek and Roman deities, as well as some from other cultures. She was not fully integrated into the Greek pantheon, but she was at different times equated with a variety of Greek mythological figures, including Demeter, Aphrodite, orIo, a human woman who was turned into a cow and chased by the goddessHera from Greece to Egypt.[186] The cult of Demeter was an especially important influence on Isis's worship after its arrival in Greece.[187] Isis's relationship with women was influenced by her frequent equation with Artemis, who had a dual role as a virgin goddess and a promoter of fertility.[188] Because of Isis's power over fate, she was linked with the Greek and Roman personifications of fortune,Tyche andFortuna.[189] AtByblos inPhoenicia in the second millennium BCE, Hathor had been worshipped as a form of the local goddessBaalat Gebal. Isis gradually replaced Hathor there in the course of the first millennium BCE[190] and became syncretized with another goddess from the region,Astarte.[191] InNoricum in central Europe, Isis was syncretized with the localtutelary deity Noreia,[192] and at Petra she may have been linked with the Arab goddessal-Uzza.[193] The Roman authorTacitus saidIsis was worshipped by the Suebi, aGermanic people living outside the empire,[194] but he may have mistaken aGermanic goddess for Isis because, like her, the goddess was symbolized by a ship.[195]
Many of the aretalogies include long lists of goddesses with whom Isis was linked. These texts treat all the deities they list as forms of her, suggesting that in the eyes of the authors she was a summodeistic being: the one goddess for the entirecivilized world.[196][197] In the Roman religious world, many deities were referred to as "one" or "unique" in religious texts like these. At the same time,Hellenistic philosophers frequently saw the unifying, abstract principle of the cosmos as divine. Many of them reinterpreted traditional religions to fit their concept of this highest being, as Plutarch did with Isis and Osiris.[198] InThe Golden Ass Isis says "my one person manifests the aspects of all the gods and goddesses" and that she is "worshipped by all the world under different forms, with various rites, and by manifold names," although the Egyptians and Nubians use her true name, Isis.[199][200] But when she lists the forms in which various Mediterranean peoples worship her, she mentions only female deities.[201] Greco-Roman deities were firmly divided by gender, thus limiting how universal Isis could truly be. One aretalogy avoids this problem by calling Isis and Serapis, who was often said to subsume many male gods, the two "unique" deities.[202][203] Similarly, both Plutarch and Apuleius limit Isis's importance by treating her as ultimately subordinate to Osiris.[204] The claim that she was unique was meant to emphasize her greatness more than to make a precise theological statement.[202][203]
Iconography
Images of Isis made outside Egypt were Hellenistic in style, like many of the images of her made in Egypt in Hellenistic and Roman times. The attributes she bore varied widely.[205] She sometimes wore the Hathoric cow-horn headdress, but Greeks and Romans reduced its size and often interpreted it as a crescent moon.[206] She could also wear headdresses incorporating leaves, flowers, or ears of grain.[207] Other common traits included corkscrew locks of hair and an elaborate mantle tied in a large knot over the breasts, which originated in ordinary Egyptian clothing but was treated as a symbol of the goddess outside Egypt.[208][Note 8] In her hands she could carry a uraeus or a sistrum, both taken from her Egyptian iconography,[210] or asitula, a vessel used forlibations of water or milk that were performed in Isis's cult.[211]
As Isis-Fortuna or Isis-Tyche she held a rudder, representing control of fate, in her right hand and acornucopia, standing for abundance, in her left.[212] As Isis Pharia she wore a cloak that billowed behind her like a sail, and as Isis Lactans, she nursed Harpocrates.[213] At times she was shown resting a foot on acelestial sphere, representing her control of the cosmos.[214] The diverse imagery sprang from her varied roles; as Robert Steven Bianchi says, "Isis could represent anything to anyone and could be represented in any way imaginable."[215]
Funerary stele of Alexandra priestess of Isis,NAMA,Athens.
Adherents and priests
Like most cults of the time, the Isis cult did not require its devotees to worship Isisexclusively, and their level of commitment probably varied greatly.[216] Some devotees of Isis served as priests in a variety of cults and underwent several initiations dedicated to different deities.[217] Nevertheless, many emphasized their strong devotion to her, and some considered her the focus of their lives.[218] They were among the very few religious groups in the Greco-Roman world to have a distinctive name for themselves, loosely equivalent to "Jew" or "Christian", that might indicate they defined themselves by their religious affiliation. However, the word—Isiacus or "Isiac"—was rarely used.[216]
Isiacs were a very small proportion of the Roman Empire's population,[219] but they came from everylevel of society, fromslaves andfreedmen to high officials and members of the imperial family.[220] Ancient accounts imply that Isis was popular with lower social classes, providing a possible reason why authorities in the Roman Republic, troubled by struggles between classes, regarded her cult with suspicion.[221] Women were more strongly represented in the Isis cult than in most Greco-Roman cults, and in imperial times, they could serve as priestesses in many of the same positions in the hierarchy as their male counterparts.[222] Women make up much less than half of the Isiacs known from inscriptions and are rarely listed among the higher ranks of priests,[223] but because women are underrepresented in Roman inscriptions, their participation may have been greater than is recorded.[224] Several Roman writers accused Isis's cult of encouraging promiscuity among women. Jaime Alvar suggests the cult attracted male suspicion simply because it gave women a venue to act outside their husbands' control.[225]
Priests of Isis were known for their distinctive shaven heads and white linen clothes, both characteristics drawn from Egyptian priesthoods and their requirements ofritual purity.[226] A temple of Isis could include several ranks of priests, as well as various cultic associations and specialized duties for lay devotees.[227] There is no evidence of a hierarchy overseeing multiple temples, and each temple may well have functioned independently of the others.[228]
Temples and daily rites
Fresco of an Isiac gathering, first century CE. One priest tends a fire while another holds up a vessel of sacred water at the door of a temple flanked bysphinxes.[229]
Temples to Egyptian deities outside Egypt, such as theRed Basilica inPergamon, theTemple of Isis at Pompeii, or theIseum Campense in Rome, were built in a largely Greco-Roman style but, like Egyptian temples, were surrounded by large courts enclosed by walls. They were decorated with Egyptian-themed artwork, sometimes including antiquities imported from Egypt. Their layout was more elaborate than that of traditional Roman temples and included rooms for housing priests and for various ritual functions, with a cult statue of the goddess in a secluded sanctuary.[230][231] Unlike Egyptian cult images, Isis's Hellenistic and Roman statues were life-size or larger. The daily ritual still entailed dressing the statue in elaborate clothes each morning and offering it libations, but in contrast with Egyptian tradition, the priests allowed ordinary devotees of Isis to see the cult statue during the morning ritual, pray to it directly, and sing hymns before it.[232]
Another object of veneration in these temples was water, which was treated as a symbol of the waters of the Nile. Isis temples built in Hellenistic times often included underground cisterns that stored thissacred water, raising and lowering the water level in imitation of the Nile flood. Many Roman temples instead used a pitcher of water that was worshipped as a cult image or manifestation of Osiris.[233]
Personal worship
Romanlararia, or household shrines, contained statuettes of thepenates, a varied group of protective deities chosen based on the preferences of the members of the household.[234] Isis and other Egyptian deities were found inlararia in Italy from the late first century BCE[235] to the beginning of the fourth century CE.[236]
The cult asked both ritual and moral purity of its devotees, periodically requiring ritual baths or days-long periods of sexual abstinence. Isiacs sometimes displayed their piety on irregular occasions, singing Isis's praises in the streets or, as a form ofpenance, declaring their misdeeds in public.[237]
Some temples to Greek deities, including Serapis, practicedincubation, in which worshippers slept in a temple hoping that the god would appear to them in a dream and give them advice or heal their ailments. Some scholars believe that this practice took place in Isis's temples, but there is no firm evidence that it did.[238] Isis was, however, thought to communicate through dreams in other circumstances, including to call worshippers to undergo initiation.[239]
Some temples of Isis performedmystery rites toinitiate new members of the cult. These rites were claimed to be of Egyptian origin and may have drawn on the secretive tendencies of some Egyptian rites.[240] However, they were mainly based on Greek mystery cults, especially theEleusinian Mysteries dedicated to Demeter, colored with Egyptian elements.[241][242][Note 9] Although mystery rites are among the best-known elements of Isis's Greco-Roman cult, they are only known to have been performed in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor.[245] By giving the devotee a dramatic, mystical experience of the goddess, initiations added emotional intensity to the process of joining her following.[239]
The Golden Ass, in describing how the protagonist joins Isis's cult, gives the only detailed account of Isiac initiation.[247] Apuleius's motives for writing about the cult and the accuracy of his fictionalized description are much debated. But the account is broadly consistent with other evidence about initiations, and scholars rely heavily on it when studying the subject.[248]
Ancient mystery rites used a variety of intense experiences, such as nocturnal darkness interrupted by bright light and loud music and noise, to overwhelm their senses and give them an intensereligious experience that felt like direct contact with the god they devoted themselves to.[249] Apuleius's protagonist, Lucius, undergoes a series of initiations, though only the first is described in detail. After entering the innermost part of Isis's temple at night, he says, "I came to the boundary of death and, having trodden on the threshold ofProserpina, I travelled through all the elements and returned. In the middle of the night I saw the sun flashing with bright light, I came face to face with the gods below and the gods above and paid reverence to them from close at hand."[250] This cryptic description suggests that the initiate's symbolic journey to the world of the dead was likened to Osiris's rebirth, as well as to Ra's journey through the underworld in Egyptian myth,[251] possibly implying that Isis brought the initiate back from death as she did her husband.[252]
Festivals
Roman calendars listed the two most importantfestivals of Isis as early as the first century CE. The first festival was theNavigium Isidis in March, which celebrated Isis's influence over the sea and served as a prayer for the safety of seafarers and, eventually, of the Roman people and their leaders.[253] It consisted of an elaborate procession, including Isiac priests and devotees with a wide variety of costumes and sacred emblems, carrying a model ship from the local Isis temple to the sea[254] or to a nearby river.[255] The other was theIsia in late October and early November. Like its Egyptian forerunner, the Khoiak festival, the Isia included a ritual reenactment of Isis's search for Osiris, followed by jubilation when the god's body was found.[256] Several more minor festivals were dedicated to Isis, including thePelusia in late March that may have celebrated the birth of Harpocrates, and theLychnapsia, or lamp-lit festival, that celebrated Isis's own birth on August 12.[253]
Festivals of Isis and other polytheistic deities were celebrated throughout the fourth century CE, despite thegrowth of Christianity in that era and thepersecution of pagans that intensified toward the end of the century.[257] The Isia was celebrated at least as late as 417 CE,[258] and the Navigium Isidis lasted well into the sixth century.[259] Increasingly, the religious meaning of all Roman festivals was forgotten or ignored even as the customs continued. In some cases, these customs became part of the combined classical and Christian culture of theEarly Middle Ages.[260]
Possible influence on Christianity
Isis Lactans holdingHarpocrates in an Egyptian fresco atKaranis, dating to the fourth century CE
A contentious question about Isis is whether her cult influenced Christianity.[261] Some Isiac customs may have been among the pagan religious practices that wereincorporated into Christian traditions as the Roman Empire was Christianized.Andreas Alföldi, for instance, argued in the 1930s that the medievalCarnival festival, in which a model boat was carried, developed from the Navigium Isidis.[262]
Much attention focuses on whether traits of Christianity were borrowed from pagan mystery cults, including that of Isis.[263] The more devoted members of Isis's cult made a personal commitment to a deity they regarded as superior to others, as Christians did.[264] Both Christianity and the Isis cult had an initiation rite: the mysteries for Isis,baptism in Christianity.[265] One of the mystery cults' shared themes—a god whosedeath and resurrection may be connected with the individual worshipper's well-being in the afterlife—resembles the central theme of Christianity. The suggestion that Christianity's basic beliefs were taken from mystery cults has provoked heated debate for more than 200 years.[266] In response to these controversies, both Hugh Bowden and Jaime Alvar, scholars who study ancient mystery cults, suggest that similarities between Christianity and the mystery cults were not produced by direct borrowing of ideas but by their common background: the Greco-Roman culture in which they all developed.[265][267]
Similarities between Isis andMary, the mother of Jesus, have also been scrutinized. They have been subject to controversy betweenProtestant Christians and theCatholic Church, as many Protestants have argued that Catholicveneration of Mary is a remnant of paganism.[268] The classicist R. E. Witt saw Isis as the "great forerunner" of Mary. He suggested that converts to Christianity who had formerly worshipped Isis would have seen Mary in much the same terms as their traditional goddess. He pointed out that the two had several spheres of influence in common, such as agriculture and the protection of sailors. He compared Mary's title "Mother of God" to Isis's epithet "mother of the god", and Mary's "queen of heaven" to Isis's "queen of heaven".[269] Stephen Benko, a historian of early Christianity, argues that devotion to Mary was deeply influenced by the worship of several goddesses, not just Isis.[270] In contrast,John McGuckin, achurch historian, says that Mary absorbed superficial traits from these goddesses, such as iconography, but the fundamentals of her cult were thoroughly Christian.[271]
Images of Isis with Horus in her lap are often suggested as an influence on theiconography of Mary, particularly images of theMary nursing the infant Jesus, as images of nursing women were rare in the ancient Mediterranean world outside Egypt.[272] Vincent Tran Tam Tinh points out that the latest images of Isis nursing Horus date to the fourth century CE, while the earliest images of Mary nursing Jesus date to the seventh century CE. Sabrina Higgins, drawing on his study, argues that if there is a connection between the iconographies of Isis and Mary, it is limited to images from Egypt.[273] In contrast, Thomas F. Mathews and Norman Muller think Isis's pose in late antique panel paintings influenced several types of Marian icons, inside and outside Egypt.[274] Elizabeth Bolman says these early Egyptian images of Mary nursing Jesus were meant to emphasize his divinity, much as images of nursing goddesses did in ancient Egyptian iconography.[275] Higgins argues that such similarities prove that images of Isis influenced those of Mary, but not that Christians deliberately adopted Isis's iconography or other elements of her cult.[276]
The memory of Isis survived the extinction of her worship. Like the Greeks and Romans, many modern Europeans have regarded ancient Egypt as the home of profound and often mystical wisdom, and this wisdom has often been linked with Isis.[277]Giovanni Boccaccio's biography of Isis in his 1374 workDe mulieribus claris, based on classical sources, treated her as a historical queen who taught skills of civilization to humankind. SomeRenaissance thinkers elaborated this perspective on Isis.Annio da Viterbo, in the 1490s, claimed Isis and Osiris had civilized Italy before Greece, thus drawing a direct connection between his home country and Egypt. TheBorgia Apartments painted for Annio's patron,Pope Alexander VI, incorporate this same theme in their illustrated rendition of the Osiris myth.[278]
Western esotericism has often made reference to Isis. Two Roman esoteric texts used the mythic motif in which Isis passes down secret knowledge to Horus. InKore Kosmou, she teaches him wisdom passed down fromHermes Trismegistus,[279] and in the earlyalchemical textIsis the Prophetess to Her Son Horus, she gives him alchemical recipes.[280] Early modern esoteric literature, which saw Hermes Trismegistus as an Egyptian sage and frequently made use of texts attributed to his hand, sometimes referred to Isis as well.[281] In a different vein, Apuleius's description of Isiac initiation has influenced the practices of manysecret societies.[282]Jean Terrasson's 1731 novelSethos used Apuleius as inspiration for a fanciful Egyptian initiation rite dedicated to Isis.[283] It was imitated by actual rituals in variousMasonic and Masonic-inspired societies during the eighteenth century, as well as in other literary works, most notablyWolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1791 operaThe Magic Flute.[284]
From the Renaissance on, theveiled statue of Isis that Plutarch and Proclus mentioned was interpreted as a personification ofnature, based on a passage in the works ofMacrobius in the fifth century CE that equated Isis with nature.[285][Note 10] Authors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ascribed a wide variety of meanings to this image. Isis represented nature as the mother of all things, as a set of truths waiting to be unveiled by science, as a symbol of thepantheist concept of an anonymous, enigmatic deity who wasimmanent within nature,[286] or as an awe-inspiringsublime power that could be experienced through ecstatic mystery rites.[287] In thedechristianization of France during the French Revolution, she served as an alternative to traditional Christianity: a symbol that could represent nature, modern scientific wisdom, and a link to the pre-Christian past.[288] For these reasons, Isis's image appeared in artwork sponsored by therevolutionary government, such as theFontaine de la Régénération, and by theFirst French Empire.[289][290] The metaphor of Isis's veil continued to circulate through the nineteenth century.Helena Blavatsky, the founder of the esotericTheosophical tradition, titled her 1877 book on TheosophyIsis Unveiled, implying that it would reveal spiritual truths about nature that science could not.[291]
Among modern Egyptians, Isis was used as a national symbol during thePharaonism movement of the 1920s and 1930s, as Egypt gained independence fromBritish rule. In works such as Mohamed Naghi's painting in theparliament of Egypt, titledEgypt's Renaissance, andTawfiq al-Hakim's playThe Return of the Spirit, Isis symbolizes the revival of the nation. A sculpture byMahmoud Mokhtar, also calledEgypt's Renaissance, plays upon the motif of Isis's removing her veil.[292]
Isis is found frequently in works of fiction, such as asuperhero franchise, and her name and image appear in places as disparate as advertisements and personal names.[293] The nameIsidoros, meaning "gift of Isis" in Greek,[294] survived in Christianity despite its pagan origins, giving rise to the English nameIsidore and its variants.[295] In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, "Isis" itself became a popular femininegiven name.[296]
Isis continues to appear in modern esoteric andpagan belief systems. The concept of a single goddess incarnating all feminine divine powers, partly inspired by Apuleius, became a widespread theme in literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[297] Influential groups and figures in esotericism, such as theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late nineteenth century andDion Fortune in the 1930s, adopted this all-encompassing goddess into their belief systems and called her Isis. This conception of Isis influenced theGreat Goddess found in many forms ofNeopagan witchcraft.[298][299] Today,reconstructions of ancient Egyptian religion, such asKemetic Orthodoxy[300] or the Church of the Eternal Source, include Isis among the deities they revere.[301] An eclectic religious organization focused on female divinity calls itself theFellowship of Isis because, in the words of one of its priestesses, M. Isidora Forrest, Isis can be "all Goddesses to all people".[302]
^The worship of a particular god, such as Isis, within ancient Egyptian religion is termed a "cult".[10] The same is often true for the worship of individual gods within Greek or Roman religion. Classicists sometimes refer to the veneration of Isis, or of certain other deities who were introduced to the Greco-Roman world, as "religions" because they were more distinct from the culture around them than the cults of Greek or Roman gods.[11] However, these cults did not form the kind of independent, self-contained communities with distinct worldviews thatJewish andChristian groups in the Roman Empire did.[12]Françoise Dunand andJaime Alvar have both argued that the worship of Isis should be called a "cult", because it formed a part of the wider systems of Greek and Roman religion, rather than an independent, all-encompassing system of beliefs like Judaism or Christianity.[11][13]
^Originally the first consonant in the name,ꜣ, was pronounced asr orl. By the time of theNew Kingdom it had weakened to aglottal stop sound, and thet at the end of words had disappeared from speech, so in the New Kingdom the pronunciation of Isis's name was similar toUsa. Forms of her name in other languages all descend from this pronunciation.[14] The Meroitic forms of her name,𐦥𐦣𐦯Wos[a] or𐦠𐦯As[a], indicate the pronunciation /uːɕa/.[3]
^These figurines, which were common in Roman Egypt, are often thought to depict Isis or Hathor combined with Aphrodite, but it is not even certain that they represent a goddess.[83] The exposed genitals may represent fertility[82] or be meant to ward off evil.[83]
^Scholars have traditionally believed, based on the writings ofProcopius, that Philae was closed in about 535 CE by a military expedition underJustinian I. Jitse Dijkstra has argued that Procopius's account of the temple closure is inaccurate and that regular religious activity there ceased shortly after the last date inscribed at the temple, in 456 or 457 CE.[115] Eugene Cruz-Uribe suggests instead that during the fifth and sixth centuries the temple lay empty most of the time, but Nubians living nearby continued to hold periodic festivals there until well into the sixth century.[116]
^Tiberius's expulsion of the Egyptian cults was part of a broader reaction against religious practices that were regarded as a threat to order and tradition, including Judaism andastrology.Josephus, a Roman-Jewish historian who gives the most detailed account of the expulsion, says the Egyptian cults were targeted because of a scandal in which a man posed as Anubis, with the help of Isis's priests, in order to seduce a Roman noblewoman. Sarolta Takács casts doubt on Josephus's account, arguing that it is fictionalized in order to convey a moral point.[144]
^The statue was at a temple inSais, Neith's cult center. She was largely conflated with Isis in Plutarch's time, and he says the statue is of "Athena [Neith], whom [the Egyptians] consider to be Isis". Proclus's version of the quotation says "no one has ever lifted my veil," implying that the goddess is virginal.[173] This claim was occasionally made of Isis in Greco-Roman times, though it conflicted with the widespread belief that she and Osiris together conceived Horus.[174] Proclus also adds "The fruit of my womb was the sun", suggesting that the goddess conceived and gave birth to the sun without the participation of a male deity, which would mean it referred to Egyptian myths about Neith as the mother of Ra.[173]
^This knot is sometimes called the "Isis-knot", although it should not be confused with thetyet symbol, which is also sometimes called the "knot of Isis".[209]
^The mystery rites may have emerged as part of the Hellenization of Isis under the Ptolemies in the third century BCE,[243] in Greece under the influence of the cult of Demeter in the first century BCE,[244] or as late as the first or second century CE.[245] Even after the initiation ceremony had developed, few texts in Egypt referred to it.[246]
^Early modern illustrations of Isis as nature often showed her with multiple breasts. Originally, theform of Artemis that was worshipped atEphesus was depicted with round protuberances on her chest that came to be interpreted as breasts. Early modern artists drew Isis in this form because Macrobius claimed that both Isis and Artemis were depicted this way.[285]
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Further reading
Berger, Catherine; Clerc, Gisèle; Grimal, Nicolas, eds. (1994).Hommages à Jean Leclant, Volume 3: Études isiaques (in French, English, German, and Italian). Institut français d'archéologie orientale.ISBN978-2-7247-0138-8.
Bricault, Laurent (2019).Isis Pelagia: Images, Names and Cults of a Goddess of the Seas. Brill.ISBN978-90-04-41389-4.
Bricault, Laurent (2013).Les cultes isiaques dans le monde Gréco-romain [Isiac cults in the Greco-Roman world] (in French). Les Belles Lettres.ISBN978-2-251-33969-6.
Leclant, Jean; Clerc, Gisèle (1972–1991).Inventaire bibliographique des Isiaca. Répertoire bibliographique des travaux relatifs à la diffusion des cultes isiaques 1940–1969 [Bibliographical inventory of Isiaca. Bibliographic directory of works relating to the dissemination of isiac cults 1940-1969] (in French). Brill. A–D:ISBN978-90-04-29481-3; E–K:ISBN978-90-04-03981-0; L–Q:ISBN978-90-04-07061-5; R–Z:ISBN978-90-04-09247-1.
Nagel, Svenja (2019).Isis im Römischen Reich [Isis in the Roman Empire] (in German). Harrassowitz.ISBN978-3-447-10801-0. (2 volumes).
Tran Tam Tinh, V. (1973).Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments gréco-romains d'Isis allaitant Harpocrate [Isis lactans: Corpus of Greco-Roman monuments of Isis suckling Harpocrates] (in French). Brill.ISBN978-90-04-03746-5.
Vidman, Ladislav (1970).Isis und Serapis bei den Griechen und Römern [Isis and Serapis among the Greeks and Romans] (in German). Walter de Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-176823-6.
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