Isis Goddess Trivia
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60 free Isis Goddess trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Isis trivia quiz covers the great goddess of ancient Egypt from her first appearances in the Pyramid Texts to the last functioning temple at Philae and her long afterlife in Western culture. It follows the Osiris myth in detail: the chest built to Osiris's measurements, the search with Nephthys, the reassembly that became the model for mummification, the birth of Horus in the Delta papyrus and the trick that pried Ra's secret name from him. You will also find questions on her iconography (the throne hieroglyph, the cow-horn sun disk borrowed from Hathor, the kite, the tyet knot of red jasper), her temples and festivals in Egypt and Nubia, and the extraordinary spread of her cult through the Greek and Roman worlds: Delos, Pompeii, the Iseum Campense, Isis Pelagia and the Navigium Isidis, the mysteries described in Apuleius's Golden Ass, and the debate over her influence on Christian images of Mary. There are also questions on Isis in the Renaissance, Mozart's Magic Flute, Blavatsky and modern paganism. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on Isis, the Osiris myth and her temples, and each explanation adds one further detail. If you want the wider pantheon, try our Egyptian mythology quiz too.
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Q 01What hieroglyph did Isis originally wear on her head as a sign of her identity?
A throne
The sign spelled the sounds of her name, and some scholars think she was originally a personification of the royal throne itself.
Q 02During the New Kingdom, Isis took on the sun-disk headdress of which other Egyptian goddess?
Hathor
Hathor may have been counted as Horus's mother before Isis took over that role along with her crown.
Q 03Isis and her three siblings were the children of which two deities?
Geb and Nut
Geb and Nut were the earth god and the sky goddess, lovers held apart by the air god Shu, who is shown standing between them and lifting her arched body overhead.
Q 04Which sister helped Isis search for and reassemble the pieces of Osiris's body?
Nephthys
Nephthys was the wife of Set, the brother who killed Osiris, yet she sided with Isis, and the sisters' work on the body became the mythic model for mummification.
Q 05In Plutarch's version, how does Set trap Osiris?
In a chest built to his exact measurements
In a chest built to his exact measurements: at a feast Set offered it to whoever fitted inside, and once Osiris lay down the plotters nailed the lid shut and threw it in the river.
Q 06According to Plutarch, which part of Osiris's body did Isis have to reconstruct because fish had eaten it?
His penis
His penis: Plutarch says three kinds of Nile fish fed on it, which is why, he adds, Egyptians would not eat those fish, and Isis made a replica to take its place.
Q 07In Plutarch's telling, Osiris's body drifted to which Phoenician city, where a tree grew up around it?
Byblos
Byblos: its king had the trunk cut into a pillar for his palace, unaware of what it held, so Isis took service in the queen's household to get near it.
Q 08Where, in the developed myth, does Isis give birth to Horus after a difficult labor?
The marshes of the Nile Delta
The marshes of the Nile Delta: there, among the papyrus, Isis kept Horus hidden from Set until he was grown, and her efforts to heal him there became the model for Egyptian healing spells.
Q 09In one story, seven minor deities travel with Isis as her bodyguard in the form of which creatures?
Scorpions
Scorpions: when a rich woman shut her door on Isis, they stung the woman's son in revenge, and the goddess took pity and cured the blameless child herself.
Q 10In one myth Horus beheads Isis in a rage, and her head is replaced with that of which animal?
A cow
A cow: Horus lashed out after Isis took pity on Set in mid-battle and let him go, and the tale explains the horned crown she wears.
Q 11In a famous spell, Isis creates a snake to bite which god so she can extract his secret name?
Ra
Ra, poisoned by the snake she had shaped, could be cured by Isis alone, and she held out until he gave up the name, which he let her pass on only to her son Horus.
Q 12In 'The Contendings of Horus and Set', Isis tricks Set into condemning himself by taking what form?
A beautiful young woman
A beautiful young woman: she told Set that a stranger was threatening to take her dead husband's herd from her son, and when he called it unjust she taunted him for judging his own case.
Q 13Isis and her sister were often shown mourning Osiris in the form of which bird?
Kite
Q 21In Plutarch's telling, Isis sought out and raised which god, the abandoned child of her sister and Osiris?
Anubis
Anubis: his mother abandoned the newborn for fear of her husband Set, and Isis tracked him down with the help of dogs and raised him to be her guardian.
Q 22Philae's temple of Isis was taken apart and rebuilt in the UNESCO rescue that also moved which monument?
Abu Simbel
Abu Simbel was moved in the 1960s, and Philae's temples followed in the 1970s, rebuilt on the nearby islet of Agilkia, which was levelled and reshaped to receive them.
Q 23Plutarch says which animals never harm people in papyrus boats, because Isis once searched for Osiris in one?
Crocodiles
The kite's cry may have recalled wailing women, or its search for carrion the sisters' search for their brother.
Q 14What is the tyet, an emblem of Isis often placed on mummies?
A knot likened to her blood
A knot likened to her blood: the Book of the Dead calls for a tyet of red jasper at the mummy's neck, so that the power of Isis would guard the body.
Q 15Which instrument, borrowed from another goddess's cult, became one of Isis's attributes?
Sistrum
Sistrum: this sacred rattle spread across the Roman Empire with the cult of Isis, and a close cousin of it is shaken in Ethiopian church services.
Q 16The Pyramid Texts closely link Isis with Sopdet, the goddess of which star?
Sirius
Sirius rose again at dawn just before the Nile's yearly flood, so the star, and Isis with it, was credited with bringing the water that made Egypt's fields grow.
Q 17Which sacred bull, worshipped at Memphis as a living god, was said to be the son of Isis?
Apis
Apis was a living bull recognised by its markings, and when one died it was mourned, mummified like a king and buried in underground galleries at Saqqara.
Q 18Which papyrus tells of Isis serving as a midwife at the birth of three future kings?
Westcar Papyrus
Westcar Papyrus: in its last tale Isis and other deities arrive disguised as wandering performers to deliver the triplets, and she calls each boy by name as he is born.
Q 19Josephus says a seduction scandal led which Roman emperor to destroy Isis's temple and throw her statue in the river?
Tiberius
Tiberius acted, Josephus says, after priests of Isis were bribed to tell a noblewoman that a god of the temple wished to dine with her, when the caller was really a suitor she had turned down.
Q 20Isis's temple at Philae outlived Egypt's other great temples, until which Byzantine emperor ordered it closed?
Justinian I
Justinian I sent his commander Narses to close it and carry its statues off to Constantinople; until then peoples from beyond the frontier in Nubia had kept the sanctuary going.
Crocodiles: Isis was gathering the pieces of Osiris by papyrus skiff, and in the tradition Plutarch reports she held a funeral for each where she found it, hence Egypt's many tombs of Osiris.
Q 24Which Greek historian of the fifth century BCE likened Isis to Demeter?
Herodotus
Herodotus wrote that 'Isis is in the tongue of the Hellenes Demeter'; each goddess was known for wandering the world in search of a lost loved one, a daughter or a husband.
Q 25The first Ptolemies promoted which new god, blending Osiris with Greek gods, as Isis's consort?
Serapis
Serapis was given the look of a bearded Greek god so that the Ptolemies' Greek and Egyptian subjects could share one cult, centred on his great temple at Alexandria.
Q 26Which Greek island, a trading hub, was an early cult center that launched Isis's worship into Italy?
Delos
Delos became a free port thick with Italian traders in the second century BCE, the route by which the Egyptian cults reached Italy; a temple of Isis stands among its ruins.
Q 27After conquering Egypt, Octavian banned shrines to the Egyptian gods inside which of Rome's limits?
The pomerium
The pomerium was Rome's sacred inner boundary: keeping the shrines outside it, fresh from the war with Egypt, branded her gods as foreign without driving them from the city.
Q 28Which Roman dynasty, first hailed to power in Alexandria, treated Isis and her consort as divine patrons of its rule?
The Flavians
The Flavians owed Egypt their rise: its legions were the first to swear loyalty to Vespasian, and when fire destroyed Rome's great temple of Isis in 80 CE the dynasty rebuilt it.
Q 29Which second-century novel ends with its hero Lucius being initiated into the cult of Isis?
The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass: Lucius, turned into a donkey by a botched spell, is restored when Isis appears to him and tells him to eat the roses a priest will carry in her procession.
Q 30Rome looked to Isis Pelagia, 'Isis of the Sea', to protect which Egyptian cargo its people depended on?
Grain
Grain: Egypt's harvests fed the city of Rome, so the goddess who watched over the crossing from Alexandria came to be seen as guarding the wellbeing of the whole empire.