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Age: 23
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Country: Egypt
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10/11/2020
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The Goddess Isis
Category: Blogging
Egyptian origins
Isis is the Greek form of the goddess’s name, which in ancient
Egyptian was Aset, meaning “seat” or “throne.” Depicted as a slim woman
wearing a sheath dress, she is often shown with a throne on her head. As
her divine roles diversified, her appearance would change. Hathor, an
early Egyptian goddess of motherhood, was often shown with a solar disk
and cow horns. As Isis became closely linked to maternity, her headdress
morphed and became like Hathor’s. Isis’s ability to absorb new traits
would prove valuable to the longevity and spread of her worship
throughout the ancient world.
In one of the most popular tellings of the Isis myth, she is one of
the children of the gods Geb, god of the earth, and Nut, goddess of the
sky. She marries one of her brothers, the god Osiris, and the pair rule
the world. Osiris is murdered by his jealous younger brother Set, who
dismembers the body and scatters it. Grieving, Isis searches the world
to collect the pieces and puts him back together. Osiris is revived, but
rather than being the lord of the living, Osiris becomes lord of the
dead. Isis gives birth to a son, Horus (a popular art motif depicts Isis
nursing her infant son). Horus grows up to banish Set, restoring order
to the world.
The earliest mention of Isis can be found in the Pyramid Texts,
sacred inscriptions carved in tomb walls of pyramids in Saqqara dating
back to the Old Kingdom (circa 2575-2150 B.C.). Among the most ancient
sacred writings, these texts center on pharaonic funerary rituals and
beliefs about the journey of kings through the afterlife. (These are the sacred and secret rituals in the Book of the Dead.)
At first Isis was only worshipped in the Nile Delta where she
originated, but she grew to become an important deity for the whole of
ancient Egypt. Known for her magic, her
beneficent power encompassed both daily life and the afterlife. As
Egyptian notions of the afterlife became more democratic, she was
considered the protector of all the dead across Egyptian society, not
just the pharaohs and their families at the top. Egyptian women regarded
her as the model mother and wife. Her reputation as one of the warmest
and most humane of the gods would later win hearts outside Egypt.
From Egypt to Greece
When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., the worship of
Isis would flourish and expand beyond Egypt. Rather than censor
Egyptians’ local religion, Alexander embraced it. While visiting the
city of Memphis, Alexander made sacrifices to Apis, an Egyptian bull god
also associated with Osiris, and connected the deity’s power to his own
reign.
Following Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., one of his generals, Ptolemy
I Soter, took control of Egypt and continued the practice of religious
tolerance. This dynasty, the so-called Ptolemies, would continue to
unite the new Macedon elite with the local Egyptian population through
faith.
Located in Upper Egypt near the border of modern Sudan, the island of
Philae was sacred to Isis. Temples had been built to her there since
the sixth century B.C. Construction on an impressive new temple for Isis
began shortly before Alexander’s conquest and was finished by Ptolemy
II Philadelphus and his successor, Ptolemy III Euergetes, in the third
century B.C.
Under Ptolemaic rule, aspects of Osiris and Apis were combined with
traits of Greek gods, including Zeus and Hades, to create a syncretic
deity, Serapis. His association with the underworld, and therefore with
Osiris, helped the framers of the new Ptolemaic cult settle on Isis as
Serapis’s consort.
Their center of worship was in Alexandria, a major commercial center
under the Ptolemies. To Alexandrian merchants, Isis and Serapis became
associated with prosperity in addition to the afterlife, healing, and
fertility.
Goddess goes viral
As Ptolemaic influence spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean,
worship of Isis also traveled along the trade routes to the coastlines
of modern-day Syria, Israel, and Turkey. She became linked with regional
deities. In Greece Isis was originally linked with Demeter, goddess of
agriculture. In and around Lebanon she was associated with the Middle
Eastern goddess Astarte. In Roman cities she was linked with Fortuna,
goddess of luck, and Venus, goddess of love. The first- and
second-century A.D. writer Plutarch likened her to Persephone, consort
of Hades, the lord of the underworld. (Here's how the Greek's changed the way we think about life after death.)
Temples to Isis were erected throughout the Mediterranean world.
Among them was the Temple of Isis on Delos in the Aegean, a tiny, arid
island that became an important trading post in the Ptolemaic era. The
impressive Doric Temple of Isis, whose ruins still stand on the island,
was built in the early second century B.C. Roman merchants operating on
Delos adopted the Isis cult they found there and took it back with them
when they returned to Naples, Campania, Ostia, Rome, and Sicily. Isis
had become an emblem of Ptolemaic hegemony; by the first century B.C.,
her cult reached as far west as Spain. As worship of Isis
continued to spread, the goddess’s responsibilities expanded as well. In
addition to her traditional roles as wife, mother, healer, and
protector of the dead, Isis was worshipped as the goddess of good
fortune, the sea, and travel. Sailors revered her: A festival held every
spring became associated with Isis and was later known across the Roman
world as Navigium Isidis. Many cities that depended on maritime trade,
such as Pompeii, looked to Isis to defend them from the caprices of
Neptune. One of the best preserved temples of Isis can be found in
Pompeii. Built in the first century A.D., its frescoes depict Isis as
Roman worshippers would have imagined her: in a Hellenized form, rather
than Egyptian.
Mysteries of worship
By the first century B.C., Isis worship had become established as a
“mystery religion.” Rooted in Greek culture, mystery faiths centered on a
figure of a god or goddess—such as Demeter or Dionysus—and involved
confidential rituals and rites.
Participation in these sects was highly secretive, and few details of
their ceremonies survive. In the writings of Plutarch, a few can be
found. Initiates donned colorful robes and shaved off their hair. During
their initiations and other rituals, they carried the sistrum, a large
rattle associated with the goddess. Historians remain unsure of certain
details, such as how the religion was organized and if there was any
hierarchy at all.
Roman rulers were not as fond of Isis as Alexander the Great’s
generals had been centuries before. Rome tried to suppress the popular
cult several times. In the first century B.C., Queen Cleopatra of Egypt
had closely linked herself with the goddess Isis, claiming to be her
manifestation on Earth. When she and Mark Antony challenged the
authority of Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus), the cult of
Isis became a symbol of foreign corruption. After Cleopatra’s death in
30 B.C., Ptolemaic rule of Egypt came to an end, Roman control of Egypt
began, and the worship of Isis in Rome was suppressed.
Later emperors ordered her temples to be destroyed, but worship of
Isis was reinstated in Rome in the first century A.D. The great double
temple of Isis and Serapis near the Campus Martius in Rome became an
important religious center. The cult of Isis grew and reached its peak
in the Roman Empire during the second century A.D. Worship of the
goddess spread throughout the Roman world, reaching as far north as
Britain and as far east as Asia. The growth of a new faith,
Christianity, led to a steady decline in the popularity of Isis. In the
mid-sixth century, Emperor Justinian closed her temple at Philae in
southern Egypt and expelled her priests, extinguishing the official
flame of Isis that had burned steadily in Egypt for 2,000 years.
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