Isis was an ancient Egyptian goddess renowned for her skill in magic and the depth of her love for those in her care.
She was exceptionally wise in the sense that she understood other beings and their motivations better than they themselves likely did, and she was exceptionally cunning in that she put this understanding to use in ingenious plots to benefit those she favored and to foil the plans of their enemies. Her formidable knowledge of, and proficiency in, the arts of magic were most often directed toward protection and healing.[1]
Isis had particularly strong associations with the roles in which most upstanding ancient Egyptian women found themselves over the course of their lives: a devoted wife, mother, and, eventually, widow.[2] She was therefore something of a model of the ancient Egyptian ideal of femininity.
She was also a prominent fertility goddess. The tears of grief she shed over the loss of her husband, Osiris, were often said to be the cause of the annual floods of the Nile River, which nourished the floodplains with the rich silt that enabled agriculture to flourish in a land that was otherwise an empty and seemingly endless desert.[3]
Isis’s Role in Egyptian Mythological Tales
In ancient Egyptian creation narratives, Isis was the daughter of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. She had two brothers, Osiris and Seth, and a sister, Nephthys. Osiris and Isis were twins, and some accounts stated that they embraced each other while still in Nut’s womb.[4] This presaged their future relationship and abiding passion for each other.
In time, the rulership of the gods was handed down from Geb to Osiris, who reigned with Isis as his queen. However, as was recounted in the tale of The Death of Osiris and the Contest of Horus and Seth, Seth grew jealous of his brother’s exalted position, murdered him, and usurped the throne. Seth cut Osiris’s body into pieces that were then scattered over the entire land of Egypt. Isis was inconsolably devastated, and set out to find the various parts of her husband’s corpse.
When she had located all of them, she reattached them to each other. With her magical abilities, she resuscitated Osiris to some degree – even she was unable to restore him fully to life. But the partial revivification was sufficient for Osiris to father a son with her before finally dying for good.
Isis raised her son, the falcon god Horus, in secret so as to prevent Seth from harming him. When Horus had grown to adulthood, he publicly challenged Seth’s right to rule, claiming that only he, as the son of Osiris, deserved that position. By means of several disputes and contests, Horus, with the magical and motherly aid of Isis, prevailed over Seth and assumed the throne. An era of remarkable peace and plenty thus began.
Kingship and Monarchical Religion
The human pharaoh was identified as the earthly incarnation of Horus. As such, Isis had a particularly central role in the theology and rituals surrounding the pharaoh. She was, after all, his mother.
Just as Isis had protected, nurtured, and come to the aid of Horus, so she did for the pharaoh. The enemies of the pharaoh, and of Egypt more generally, were identified with Seth, whom Isis repeatedly tricked, outwitted, and ultimately, with Horus, defeated. Whenever the pharaoh was in need, Isis was there to provide strength, power, healing, and encouragement.[5][6] When the pharaoh died, she guided him safely past the many dangers that lurked in the Egyptian underworld to the blissful afterlife that awaited him.[7]
So close was this relationship that even Isis’s name, which meant “Throne,” speaks of it. One of the most common ancient Egyptian iconographical images was a seated Isis nursing an infant Horus. In the context of kingship, this image was a symbol of the king – Horus – sitting in the “lap” of the throne – Isis – and receiving its blessings.[8] Whether or not this image was a direct influence upon the much later Christian motif of the infant Jesus sitting in the lap of Mary, the similarity is striking.
The cow goddess Hathor was also often said to be the close protector and nurturer of the pharaoh. As with Isis, evidence for this can be found within her name itself, which meant “House of Horus.” Thus, it should come as no surprise that Hathor and Isis were often identified with each other, especially where matters of kingship were concerned.[9]
Popular Religion
Over time, Isis’s role in relation to the king trickled down into popular religion as well. Eventually, she became the personal guardian, helper, and healer of any and all of her worshipers, regardless of social class. It was thought that her devotees were among her favored ones, and devotion to Isis was, as a result, quite popular – people wanted to benefit from her powers of healing and protection.[10]Even death couldn’t separate her worshipers from her, as she watched over them even after they left the world of the living for the underworld.[11]
Visual Representations
In visual art, Isis was often portrayed anthropomorphically (in human form), as a woman wearing a long dress. The hieroglyph for “throne” was commonly emblazoned above her head. In such representations, she was often in the role of a mourner. Otherwise, as noted above, she was often seated and nursing the infant Horus.
Another form in which Isis was commonly pictured was that of a kite, a bird of prey whose shrill cry was thought to resemble a woman wailing over a deceased loved one. Ecologically, the kite is also a scavenger, and its searching for carrion was linked to Isis’s searching for the pieces of her dismembered husband – in fact, Isis was sometimes said to have carried out this search in the form of a kite. Even when depicted anthropomorphically, Isis sometimes had the wings or other features of a kite.
Since Isis was sometimes identified with Hathor, she could also be represented with elements of Hathor’s typical iconography, such as cow horns with a solar disk between them. She was occasionally also depicted as a scorpion, a sow, or a tree.[12]
History
Isis’s origins were remarkably humble. She is unattested before the third millennium BC, when her name began to appear beside that of Osiris as his popularity rose. Initially, Isis seems to have been a vaguely-defined goddess whose roles were mostly limited to her being the consort of Osiris.
Over time, however, her own popularity grew tremendously, as did her theological and cultic independence and the depth and complexity of her character. She absorbed the characteristics of many other goddesses along the way. Eventually, her cult outgrew and eclipsed even that of Osiris.
At the height of her popularity, Isis was not only the “Queen of Heaven” and the most revered goddess in Egypt. Her cult had been adopted by the Greeks and the Romans, who built lavish temples to her in Athens and Rome, and held her in higher esteem than they held many of their native deities. Her cult was transformed into a mystery religion wherein Isis granted personal salvation and immortality to her devotees. Her worshipers could be found in such far-flung places as England, Iraq, and everywhere in between.
In Egypt and throughout the Roman Empire, Isis’s worship survived until at least the sixth century AD – long after Christianity had become the official religion of the Empire and devotion to the pre-Christian gods was made illegal.[13][14][15]
If you’d like to learn more about Isis, as well as ancient Egyptian mythology and religion more broadly, I recommend picking up one or more of the books on this list: The 10 Best Egyptian Mythology Books.
References:
[1] Holland, Glenn S. 2009. Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient Near East. Ch. 3.
[2] Ibid. Ch. 2.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid. Ch. 3.
[6] Wilkinson, Richard H. 2003. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Ch. 5.
[7] Holland, Glenn S. 2009. Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient Near East. Ch. 3.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid. Ch. 2.
[10] Ibid. Ch. 3.
[11] Wilkinson, Richard H. 2003. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Ch. 5.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Holland, Glenn S. 2009. Gods in the Desert: Religions of the Ancient Near East. Ch. 2.
[15] Griffiths, J. Gwyn. “Isis.” In The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion. Ed. Donald B. Redford.
