Searched all Egypt for the scattered pieces of her murdered husband and bound them together
She replaced the missing part in gold and, with Anubis, wrapped the first mummy.
Myth · Egyptian
Isis
Egyptian mythology — goddess of magic, motherhood and kingship
The great magician of the Egyptian pantheon: wife and sister of Osiris, mother of Horus, and the one who puts the murdered king back together. Her cunning wins her the sun god's secret name and, through her son, the throne of Egypt. In the Greek and Roman world her cult spread far beyond Egypt, reaching Pompeii, the Rhine and London before Christianity displaced it.
How to spot them
- ▸A woman wearing the throne hieroglyph on her head, or cow horns enclosing a sun disc
- ▸Often winged, sheltering a coffin or a mummy with outstretched arms
- ▸Shown suckling a child king on her lap — an image later echoed in Christian art
- ▸Quiz clue: 'tyet knot', 'Philae', 'the kite', 'mistress of magic'
Stories & episodes
In the form of a kite she hovered over a corpse and conceived a son by it
The posthumous conception of Horus, carved on the Abydos temple of Seti I.
She shaped a serpent from the sun god's own spittle to poison him and win his secret name
She traded the cure for the hidden name that carried his power.
Hid in the papyrus marshes of Khemmis to raise her son beyond his uncle's reach
There she healed him of a scorpion sting with the help of Thoth.
Her island temple above the First Cataract was the last working pagan temple in Egypt
Philae, closed under Justinian in the sixth century AD and later moved to Agilkia.
Apuleius ends The Golden Ass with his hero's initiation into her mysteries
Book 11, the fullest literary account of her Roman cult.
A jug found in Southwark records a temple of hers in Roman London
The inscription reads LONDINI AD FANVM ISIDIS.
Quick-fire facts
- •Her name is the Greek form of Egyptian Aset, meaning 'throne' — hence the throne hieroglyph she wears
- •She is the daughter of Geb and Nut, sister of Osiris, Set and Nephthys
- •Her amulet is the tyet, a red knot sometimes called 'the blood of Isis', placed on mummies
- •Her greatest temple was on Philae, relocated to Agilkia island when the Aswan High Dam was built
- •As one of the four protective goddesses she guards the canopic jars with Nephthys, Neith and Serqet
- •The Greeks identified her with Demeter, and later Romans with Fortuna
- •Her Roman cult spread across the empire; the Iseum at Pompeii was rebuilt after the earthquake of AD 62
- •The navigium Isidis on 5 March marked the opening of the sailing season
- •Nineteenth-century writers made the 'veil of Isis' a symbol of nature's hidden truths
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- R. E. Witt — Isis in the Ancient World
- Geraldine Pinch — Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt