60 Fun Facts About Isis Goddess

What hieroglyph did Isis originally wear on her head as a sign of her identity?

The sign spelled the sounds of her name, and some scholars think she was originally a personification of the royal throne itself.

During the New Kingdom Isis took on the headdress of which goddess, a sun disk between cow horns?

She also absorbed Hathor's sistrum rattle; sometimes the throne glyph was stacked on top of the sun disk.

Isis and her three siblings were the children of which two deities?

They form the last generation of the Ennead of Heliopolis, the family of nine gods descended from the creator.

Which sister helped Isis search for and reassemble the pieces of Osiris's body?

Their work was the mythic prototype for mummification, and the two goddesses often appear together protecting sarcophagi.

In Plutarch's version, how does Set trap Osiris?

At a banquet Set promises the chest to whoever fits inside; only Osiris does, and the sealed box floats to Byblos.

According to Plutarch, which part of Osiris's body did Isis have to reconstruct because fish had eaten it?

Egyptian accounts say the organ was found intact; the closest parallel to Plutarch's detail is the New Kingdom Tale of Two Brothers.

The chest holding Osiris's body floated to which Phoenician city, where a tree grew around it?

The local king had the tree made into a palace pillar with the coffin still inside.

Where, in the developed myth, does Isis give birth to Horus after a long and difficult labor?

She then had to hide him from Set and heal him from snakebites, scorpion stings and illness.

How many minor scorpion deities travel with and guard Isis in one popular story?

They stung the son of a rich woman who refused Isis shelter, and the goddess then had to heal the blameless child.

In one myth Horus beheads Isis, and she replaces her head with that of which animal?

The story is an origin myth for the cow-horn headdress she wears.

In a famous spell, Isis creates a snake to bite which god so she can extract his secret name?

She passes the name to Horus, bolstering his royal authority; her magic was said to be 'more clever than a million gods'.

In 'The Contendings of Horus and Set', Isis tricks Set by disguising herself as what?

When Set calls her fictional situation unjust, she taunts him for judging himself in the wrong.

Isis and her sister were often shown mourning Osiris in the form of which bird?

The kite's cry may have recalled wailing women, or its search for carrion the sisters' search for their brother.

What is the tyet, Isis's looped emblem often carved in red jasper?

Also called the knot or girdle of Isis, it may have begun as a bandage for menstrual blood and was placed on mummies as an amulet.

Which rattle, borrowed from another goddess's cult, became one of Isis's attributes?

Its Egyptian name, sesheshet, imitated the sound it made.

The Pyramid Texts closely link Isis with Sopdet, the goddess of which star?

Its heliacal rising just before the Nile flood tied Isis to the inundation, sometimes equated with the tears she shed for Osiris.

Which sacred bull worshipped at Memphis was said to be Isis's son, its mother known as the 'Isis cow'?

It was fathered by a form of Osiris known as Osiris-Apis, the root of the later god Serapis.

Which Middle Kingdom text tells of Isis serving as a midwife at the birth of three future kings?

She calls out each child's name as it is born, a sign of her power over fate.

Which pharaoh of the Thirtieth Dynasty claimed Isis as his patron deity in the fourth century BCE?

The Iseion at Behbeit el-Hagar and the temple at Philae both began under his dynasty.

Isis's sanctuary at Philae, near the Nubian frontier, holds what distinction?

Supported by Nubian worshippers, it kept an organized priesthood into at least the mid-fifth century CE.

Every ten days Philae's priests carried Isis's statue to which neighbouring island, said to be Osiris's burial place?

There they performed funerary rites for the god.

To save it from the waters of the Aswan High Dam, the Philae temple complex was moved to which island?

Ninety-five structures were dismantled and rebuilt 12.4 meters higher between 1977 and 1980.

The Kingdom of Kush equated Isis with which figure in its own royal ideology?

Kushite rulers built Isis temples as far south as their capital Meroe.

Which Greek historian of the fifth century BCE likened Isis to Demeter?

Demeter's search for Persephone paralleled Isis's search for Osiris.

The first Ptolemies promoted which new god, blending Osiris, Apis and Greek deities, as Isis's consort?

Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II were then worshipped in the same temples as the divine couple.

Which Greek island, a trading hub, was an early cult center that launched Isis's worship into Italy?

Merchants spread the cults of Isis and Serapis through Greek ports from the late fourth century BCE.

After defeating Cleopatra, Octavian banned shrines to the Egyptian gods within which boundary of Rome?

Egyptian gods were thus marked as non-Roman but acceptable outside the sacred core; Tiberius later expelled them temporarily.

Which imperial dynasty of the late first century CE treated Isis and her consort as patrons of its rule?

By the second century Isis was worshipped from Petra and Palmyra to Italica in Spain and Londinium in Britain.

Which second-century novel ends with its hero Lucius being initiated into the cult of Isis?

Apuleius's Metamorphoses gives the only detailed ancient account of Isiac initiation.

As protector of sailors, Isis was called Isis Pharia, a name referring to what?

As Isis Pelagia, 'Isis of the Sea', she guarded the grain ships that fed Rome.

Which Greek epithet, meaning 'one with countless names', was applied to Isis?

She was also called panthea, 'all-goddess', and Isis Invicta, 'Unconquered Isis'.

What inscription did Plutarch and Proclus report on a veiled statue of Neith, equated with Isis?

From the Renaissance on, the veiled Isis was read as a personification of nature and her secrets.

As Isis-Fortuna, what did the goddess hold in her right hand to represent control of fate?

In her left she held a cornucopia for abundance; sometimes she rested a foot on a celestial sphere.

What word did some devotees of Isis use for themselves, one of the few self-names of a Greco-Roman cult?

It was rarely used, but its existence suggests they defined themselves by their religion, like 'Jew' or 'Christian'.

Priests of Isis were known for which distinctive appearance drawn from Egyptian tradition?

Both features reflected Egyptian requirements of ritual purity.

What did Isis temples built in Hellenistic times often include to imitate the Nile flood?

Many Roman temples instead venerated a pitcher of water as a manifestation of Osiris.

The Navigium Isidis, held in March, involved a procession carrying what to the sea or a river?

It prayed for safe seafaring; some scholars trace the medieval Carnival's model boat back to it.

The Roman festival called the Isia in late October and November reenacted what?

It descended from the Egyptian Khoiak rites and ended in jubilation when the god's body was found.

The lamp-lit Lychnapsia festival celebrated Isis's own birth on which date?

In Roman Egypt her birthday festival, the Amesysia, saw her statue carried through the fields.

The Navigium Isidis survived as a festival until at least which century CE?

The Isia was still celebrated in 417 CE, long after Christianity dominated the empire.

Which Egyptian god of writing, the Greeks' Hermes Trismegistus, was sometimes called Isis's father?

Anubis was Hellenized as Hermanubis, and Horus appeared in her temples as Harpocrates.

Which 13-year-old composer visited Pompeii's Temple of Isis in 1769?

The temple had been fully rebuilt after the earthquake of 62 CE, a sign of the cult's popularity.

Which 1791 opera features an Egyptian initiation rite inspired by Terrasson's novel Sethos?

Masonic and Masonic-inspired societies of the 18th century staged similar rituals.

In Phoenicia, Isis became syncretized with which local goddess during the first millennium BCE?

She replaced Hathor, who had been worshipped at Byblos as a form of the local goddess Baalat Gebal.

Which Roman author reported that the Germanic Suebi worshipped Isis?

In Noricum she was merged with the local goddess Noreia, and at Petra possibly with al-Uzza.

The classicist R. E. Witt called Isis the 'great forerunner' of which Christian figure?

He compared Isis's title 'mother of the god' with Mary's 'Mother of God' and noted their shared 'queen of heaven' epithet.

The name Isidore derives from a Greek name meaning what?

Isidoros survived in Christian usage despite its pagan origins.

Helena Blavatsky titled her 1877 book on Theosophy what?

The title played on the centuries-old metaphor of lifting Isis's veil to reveal nature's secrets.

In which 1374 work did Boccaccio treat Isis as a historical queen who taught civilization to humankind?

Annio da Viterbo later claimed Isis and Osiris had civilized Italy before Greece.

During which political movement did Isis serve as a national symbol for Egyptians in the 1920s and 30s?

Mahmoud Mokhtar's sculpture Egypt's Renaissance plays on the motif of Isis lifting her veil.

Isis's cult was ended by the rise of which religion between the fourth and sixth centuries CE?

Egyptian magic spells nonetheless kept invoking her name alongside Christian figures as late as the eighth century.

Isis was said to be the mother of which cat goddess by Ra?

Through Bastet she was later linked with the Greek moon goddess Artemis.

At Philae, Isis was described as more effective in battle than what?

The temple stood near the frontier with Nubian raiders, and she was called protectress of the entire nation.

In healing spells, what does Isis threaten to do unless Ra helps cure Horus?

The dangers Horus faced in childhood were extended to any patient in these spells.

Which Nile Delta region do passages in the Pyramid Texts link with Isis's possible origin?

The Iseion at Behbeit el-Hagar became one of her two earliest major temples.

Which Ptolemaic queen, the last ruler of independent Egypt, styled herself 'the new Isis'?

An earlier queen, Cleopatra III, had gone further and used Isis's name in place of her own in inscriptions.

Isis and Osiris are first named under which ruling house of the Old Kingdom?

A possible reference dates to the reign of Nyuserre Ini, and she then features prominently in the Pyramid Texts.

What was Isis called in the Meroitic language of Nubia?

The Egyptian pronunciation shifted over the centuries, ending as Ēse in Coptic and Isis in Greek.

New Kingdom temple reliefs show the king doing what with Isis to signal his divine right to rule?

Her milk was believed both to heal her child and to confer legitimate kingship.

The Nubians of Kush built temples to Isis as far south as Wad ban Naqa and which capital?

A chain of Isis temples also ran along the Nile frontier from Philae south to Maharraqa, serving Egyptians and Nubians alike.