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| Gods & Goddesses
Isis
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Copyright (C) 2001, Lisa Hunt Image used with permission |
IsisGoddess of FertilityPantheon: Egyptian Element: Water Sphere of Influence: Marriage and Fertility Preferred colors: White, Aqua Associated symbol: Ankh and Star Animals associated with: Cow Best day to work with: Monday Strongest around Samhain Associated Planet: Moon |
The wife of Osiris, she is goddess of marriage and fertility and motherhood. She is one of the goddesses most frequently mentioned in the hieroglyphic texts. Her hieroglyph is a throne. When Set killed her husband, Isis found his body and restored him to life long enough to pass on his seed, so that she might give birth to Horus. She usually is depicted carrying a papyrus sceptre, and wearing a crown adorned with horns (the Horns of Isis). She teaches that love can overcome all, even death. | |
Additional Information on Isis from WikipediaInformation is unedited and uncheckedThis article is about the goddess. Isis is also the name of a place in Queensland (see Ipswich, Australia) and also the name of the River Thames in Oxford.Isis (Greek version; Egyptian is Aset) is the goddess of motherhood and fertility in ancient Egypt. She is a life-death-rebirth deity (see Legend of Osiris and Isis), as well as one of the Ennead. Later, she acquired the goddess Sopdet. | Image:igisis.jpg|right Originally, she was a goddess of royalty (her hieroglyph includes the word for "throne"). Later, during the period of Greece|Greek dominance, she was the patron goddess of sailors. She was a close companion of Arensnuphis. Isis was the daughter of Nuit, goddess of the sky, and Seb, god of earth. She married Osiris, her brother and the father of her son Horus. Osiris was murdered by Seth but she reassembled his body (leading to her association with the underworld and the funerary cult), impregnated herself with his body and gave birth to Horus in Khemnis, a swamp. In addition to Horus, Isis was the mother of Min (god)|Min (alternatively, they were lovers). Isis, with her sister Nephthys, can be seen on the sides of coffins in human form, their wings outstreched protecting the dead. The sisters also had magical powers. Isis helped her husband, killed by Set (god)|Seth, to come back to life and rule in the land of the dead. Isis is often symbolised by a cow, or a cows head or horns (illustrating a connection with Hathor). In art, she was depicted with her son, Horus, with a crown and a vulture, and sometimes as a kite (bird)|kite flying above Osiris body. Alternatively, Isis was identified as the scorpion goddess Serq or Selk. The cult of Isis rose to prominence in the Hellenism|Hellenistic world beginning in the 1st century BCE|last centuries BCE, until it was eventually banned by the Christianity|Christians in the sixth century CE. Despite the Isis mystery cults growing popularity, there is evidence to suggest that the Isis mysteries were not altogether welcomed by the ruling classes in Rome. Her rites were considered by the princeps Augustus to be "pornographic" and capable of destroying the Roman moral fibre. It is not surprising, therefore, that part of Augustus programme for reconstruction after the fall of the Roman Republic was an attempt to infuse new life into the old gods of Rome. Tacitus writes that after Julius Caesars assassination, a temple in honour of Isis had been decreed; Augustus suspended this, and tried to turn Romans back to the Roman gods who were closely associated with the state. Eventually the Roman emperor Gaius abandoned the Augustan wariness towards Oriental cults, and it was in his reign that the Isiac festival was established in Rome. According to Josephus, Gaius himself donned female garb and took part in the mysteries he instituted, and Isis acquired in the Hellenistic age a "new rank as a leading goddess of the Mediterranean world." Roman perspectives on cult were Syncretism|syncretic, seeing in a new deity merely local aspects of a familiar one. For many Romans, Egyptian Isis was an aspect of Phrygian Cybele, whose orgiastic rites were long naturalized at Rome. In the Golden Ass (1st Century CE), Apuleius goddess Isis is identified with the Phrygian Cybele: :"Behold, Lucius, I have arrived. Thy weeping and prayers have moved me to succour thee. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, the Mistress and Governess of all the Elements, the initial Progenitrix of all things, the Chief of powers divine, Queen of Heaven, the First of the Gods celestial, the light of the Goddesses. At my will, the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell are disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in various manners, in various customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the Cybele|Mother of the Gods... (The Golden Ass) Among these names of Roman Isis, Queen of Heaven is outstanding for its long and continuous history. Some scholars argue that aspects of Isis worship have influenced the practices of some Christians in regards to the Virgin Mary. There has recently been a revival of Isis worship among neo-pagans and feminists who are attracted by the matriarchal notions of goddess worship. ==External links== ===Modern worship=== *http://www.goddess2000.org/IsIs.html Altar of Isis, Goddess & Queen *http://www.iseum.org.uk/ The Isiaic Religious Society *http://www.templeofisis.com/the_great_isis.shtml The Temple of Isis ===Ancient worship=== *http://www.touregypt.net/ISIS.HTM Egypt:Gods - Isis This text is made available under the GNU Free Documentation License Agreement. The full text of this article is available for download here. (Isis) | |