Isis
Isis, in Egyptian mythology, goddess of fertility and
motherhood. According to the Egyptian belief, she was the
daughter of the god Keb (Earth) and the goddess Nut (Sky), the
sister-wife of Osiris, judge of the dead, and mother of Horus,
god of day. After the end of the New Kingdom in the 4th century
BC, the center of Isis worship, which was then reaching its
greatest peak, was on Philae, an island in the Nile, where a
great temple was built to her during the 30th Dynasty. Ancient
stories described Isis as having great magical skill, and she was
represented as human in form though she was frequently described
as wearing the horns of a cow. Her personality was believed to
resemble that of Athor, or Hathor, the goddess of love and
gaiety.
The cult of Isis spread from Alexandria throughout the
Hellenistic world after the 4th century BC. It appeared in Greece
in combination with the cults of Horus, her son, and Serapis, the
Greek name for Osiris. The Greek historian Herodotus identified
Isis with Demeter, the Greek goddess of earth, agriculture, and
fertility. The tripartite cult of Isis, Horus, and Serapis was
later introduced (86 BC) into Rome in the consulship of Lucius
Cornelius Sulla and became one of the most popular branches of
Roman religion. It later received a bad reputation through the
licentiousness of some of its priestly rites, and subsequent
consuls made efforts to suppress or limit Isis worship. The cult
died out in Rome after the institution of Christianity, and the
last remaining Egyptian temples to Isis were closed in the middle
of the 6th century AD.
Suggested Reading: Legends of the
Egyptian Gods ; by Sir E.A.Wallis Budge, Dover
Publications, Inc. (1994).