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71-611: Meroitic : Wos[a] or Wusa B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world . Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom ( c.  2686  – c.  2181 BCE ) as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth , in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband,

142-429: A schwa [ə] and a "killer" mark that marked the absence of a vowel. That is, the letter m by itself was read [ma] , while the sequence me was read [mə] or [m] . This is how Ethiopic works today. Later scholars such as Hitze and Rilly accepted this argument, or modified it so that e could represent either [e] or schwa–zero. It has long been puzzling to epigraphers why the syllabic principles that underlie

213-579: A sistrum rattle and a headdress of cow horns enclosing a sun disk. Sometimes both headdresses were combined, so the throne glyph sat atop the sun disk. In the same era, she began to wear the insignia of a human queen, such as a vulture-shaped crown on her head and the royal uraeus , or rearing cobra, on her brow. In Ptolemaic and Roman times, statues and figurines of Isis often showed her in a Greek sculptural style , with attributes taken from Egyptian and Greek tradition. Some of these images reflected her linkage with other goddesses in novel ways. Isis-Thermuthis,

284-527: A central role in the afterlife, and a funerary text from that era suggests that women were thought able to join the retinue of Isis and Nephthys in the afterlife. Isis is treated as the mother of Horus even in the earliest copies of the Pyramid Texts. Yet there are signs that Hathor was originally regarded as his mother, and other traditions make an elder form of Horus the son of Nut and a sibling of Isis and Osiris. Isis may only have come to be Horus's mother as

355-475: A combination of Isis and Renenutet who represented agricultural fertility, was depicted in this style as a woman with the lower body of a snake. Figurines of a woman wearing an elaborate headdress and exposing her genitals may represent Isis-Aphrodite. The tyet symbol, a looped shape similar to the ankh , came to be seen as Isis's emblem at least as early as the New Kingdom, though it existed long before. It

426-576: A consonant was written alone. That is, the single letter m was read /ma/. All other vowels were overtly written: the letters mi , for example, stood for the syllable /mi/, just as in the Latin alphabet. This system is broadly similar to the Indian abugidas that arose around the same time as Meroitic. Griffith identified the essential abugida nature of Meroitic when he deciphered the script in 1911. He noted in 1916 that certain consonant letters were never followed by

497-550: A cow—an origin myth explaining the cow-horn headdress that Isis wears. Isis's maternal aspect extended to other deities as well. The Coffin Texts from the Middle Kingdom ( c.  2055 –1650 BCE) say the Four sons of Horus , funerary deities who were thought to protect the internal organs of the deceased, were the offspring of Isis and the elder form of Horus. In the same era, Horus

568-451: A gesture of mourning, or outstretched around Osiris or the deceased as a sign of their protective role. In these circumstances they were often depicted as kites or women with the wings of kites. This form may be inspired by a similarity between the kites' calls and the cries of wailing women, or by a metaphor likening the kite's search for carrion to the goddesses' search for their dead brother. Isis sometimes appeared in other animal forms: as

639-513: A legend and admit their ignorance over how the transition from one dynasty to another transpired. During this dynasty, Egyptian religion made several important changes. The earliest known copies of funerary prayers inscribed on royal tombs (known as the Pyramid Texts ) appear. The cult of the god Ra gains added importance, and kings from Userkaf through Menkauhor Kaiu built temples dedicated to Ra at or near Abusir . Then late in this dynasty,

710-545: A mystery. How Pharaoh Userkaf founded this dynasty is not known for certain. The Westcar Papyrus , which was written during the Middle Kingdom , tells a story of how king Khufu of Dynasty IV was given a prophecy that triplets born to the wife of the priest of Ra in Sakhbu would overthrow him and his heirs, and how he attempted to put these children – named Userkaf, Sahure , and Neferirkare – to death; however in recent years, scholars have recognized this story to be at best

781-480: A part in his revival, as they are meant to stir him into action. Finally, Isis restores breath and life to Osiris's body and copulates with him, conceiving their son, Horus . After this point Osiris lives on only in the Duat , or underworld. But by producing a son and heir to avenge his death and carry out funerary rites for him, Isis has ensured that her husband will endure in the afterlife. Isis's role in afterlife beliefs

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852-413: A sow, representing her maternal character; as a cow , particularly when linked with Apis; or as a scorpion. She also took the form of a tree or a woman emerging from a tree, sometimes offering food and water to deceased souls. This form alluded to the maternal nourishment she provided. Beginning in the New Kingdom, thanks to the close links between Isis and Hathor, Isis took on Hathor's attributes, such as

923-547: A throne was also st and may have shared a common etymology with Isis's name. Therefore, the Egyptologist Kurt Sethe suggested she was originally a personification of thrones. Henri Frankfort agreed, believing that the throne was considered the king's mother, and thus a goddess, because of its power to make a man into a king. Other scholars, such as Jürgen Osing and Klaus P. Kuhlmann, have disputed this interpretation, because of dissimilarities between Isis's name and

994-527: A vowel letter, and varied with other consonant letters. He interpreted them as syllabic , with the values ne, se, te, and to. Ne, for example, varied with na. Na could be followed by the vowels i and o to write the syllables ni and no, but was never followed by the vowel e. He also noted that the vowel e was often omitted. It often occurred at the ends of Egyptian loanwords that had no final vowel in Coptic . He believed that e functioned both as

1065-491: A wealthy woman who has refused to help Isis by stinging the woman's son, making it necessary for the goddess to heal the blameless child. Isis's reputation as a compassionate deity, willing to relieve human suffering, contributed greatly to her appeal. Isis continues to assist her son when he challenges Set to claim the kingship that Set has usurped, although mother and son are sometimes portrayed in conflict, as when Horus beheads Isis and she replaces her original head with that of

1136-415: Is apparent that the sequences sel- and nel-, which Rowan takes to be /sl/ and /nl/ and which commonly occurred with the determiner -l-, assimilated over time to t and l (perhaps /t/ and /ll/). The only punctuation mark was a word and phrase divider of two to three dots. Meroitic was a type of alphabet called an abugida : The vowel /a/ was not normally written; rather it was assumed whenever

1207-653: Is not in much doubt, the pronunciations of some of the other letters are much less certain. The three vowels i a o were presumably pronounced /i a u/. Ḫ is thought to have been a velar fricative , as the ch in Scottish loch or German Bach. H̱ was a similar sound, perhaps uvular as g in Dutch dag or palatal as in German ich . Q was perhaps a uvular stop , as in Arabic Qatar . S may have been like s in sun . An /n/

1278-507: Is often combined with Dynasties III , IV and VI under the group title the Old Kingdom . The Fifth Dynasty pharaohs reigned for approximately 150 years, from the early 25th century BC until the mid 24th century BC. The Fifth Dynasty of Egypt is a group of nine kings ruling Egypt for approximately 150 years in the 25th and 24th centuries BC. The relative succession of kings is not entirely secured as there are contradictions between historical sources and archaeological evidence regarding

1349-476: Is understood to represent consonants with inherent vowels other than /a/: These values were established from evidence such as Egyptian names borrowed into Meroitic. That is, the Meroitic letter which looks like an owl in monumental inscriptions, or like a numeral three in cursive Meroitic, we transcribe as m , and it is believed to have been pronounced as [m]. However, this is a historical reconstruction, and while m

1420-527: The Coptic form of Egyptian , Wusa in the Meroitic language of Nubia, and Ἶσις , on which her modern name is based, in Greek . The hieroglyphic writing of her name incorporates the sign for a throne, which Isis also wears on her head as a sign of her identity. The symbol serves as a phonogram , spelling the st sounds in her name, but it may have also represented a link with actual thrones. The Egyptian term for

1491-568: The Ptolemaic Period (305–30 BCE), she became the most complex literary character of all Egyptian deities. At the same time, she absorbed characteristics from many other goddesses, broadening her significance well beyond the Osiris myth. Isis is part of the Ennead of Heliopolis , a family of nine deities descended from the creator god, Atum or Ra . She and her siblings—Osiris, Set , and Nephthys —are

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1562-528: The Sinai to mine for turquoise and copper , and to quarries northwest of Abu Simbel for gneiss . Trade expeditions were sent south to Punt to obtain malachite , myrrh , and electrum , and archeological finds at Byblos attest to diplomatic expeditions sent to that Phoenician city. Finds bearing the names of several Dynasty V kings at the site of Dorak , near the Sea of Marmara , may be evidence of trade but remain

1633-515: The Unicode Standard in January, 2012 with the release of version 6.1. The Unicode block for Meroitic Hieroglyphs is U+10980–U+1099F. The Unicode block for Meroitic Cursive is U+109A0–U+109FF. As a Meroitic Unicode font you may use Aegyptus which can be downloaded from Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts . Fifth Dynasty of Egypt The Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty V )

1704-583: The Westcar Papyrus from the Middle Kingdom includes Isis among a group of goddesses who serve as midwives during the delivery of three future kings. She serves a similar role in New Kingdom texts that describe the divinely ordained births of reigning pharaohs. In the Westcar Papyrus, Isis calls out the names of the three children as they are born. Barbara S. Lesko sees this story as a sign that Isis had

1775-508: The Kushite language and Cursive script were replaced by Byzantine Greek , Coptic , and Old Nubian . The Old Nubian script, derived from the Uncial Greek script, added three Meroitic Cursive letters: ⟨ne⟩ , ⟨w(a)⟩ , and possibly ⟨kh(a)⟩ , for Old Nubian [ɲ] , [w – u ], and [ŋ] respectively. This addition of Meroitic Cursive letters suggests that

1846-614: The Meroitic script worked differently than Egyptian hieroglyphs. Some scholars, such as Harald Haarmann , believe that the vowel letters of Meroitic are evidence for an influence of the Greek alphabet in its development. There were 23 letters in the Meroitic alphasyllabary, including four vowels. In the transcription established by Hintze (based on earlier versions by Griffith), they are: The fifteen consonants are conventionally transcribed: These consonants are understood to have an inherent vowel value /a/, such that p should generally be understood as /pa/. An additional series of characters

1917-587: The Middle Kingdom. Her importance grew during the New Kingdom, when she was increasingly connected with Hathor and the human queen. The early first millennium BCE saw an increased emphasis on the family triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus and an explosive growth in Isis's popularity. In the fourth century BCE, Nectanebo I of the Thirtieth Dynasty claimed Isis as his patron deity, tying her still more closely to political power. The Kingdom of Kush , which ruled Nubia from

1988-691: The Osiris myth took shape during the Old Kingdom, but through her relationship with him she came to be seen as the epitome of maternal devotion. In the developed form of the myth, Isis gives birth to Horus, after a long pregnancy and a difficult labor, in the papyrus thickets of the Nile Delta. As her child grows she must protect him from Set and many other hazards—snakes, scorpions, and simple illness. In some texts, Isis travels among humans and must seek their help. According to one such story, seven minor scorpion deities travel with and guard her. They take revenge on

2059-428: The cult of the deity Osiris assumes importance, most notably in the inscriptions found in the tomb of Unas . Amongst non-royal Egyptians of this time, Ptahhotep , vizier to Djedkare Isesi , won fame for his wisdom; The Maxims of Ptahhotep was ascribed to him by its later copyists. Non-royal tombs were also decorated with inscriptions, like the royal ones, but instead of prayers or incantations, biographies of

2130-501: The development of the Old Nubian script began at least two centuries before its first full attestation in the late 8th century and/or that knowledge of the Kushite language and script was retained until the 8th century. The script was deciphered in 1909 by Francis Llewellyn Griffith , a British Egyptologist, based on the Meroitic spellings of Egyptian names. However, the Meroitic language itself remains poorly understood. In late 2008,

2201-463: The distinctive traits of their deity more than on her universality, whereas some Egyptian hymns to Isis treat other goddesses in cult centers from across Egypt and the Mediterranean as manifestations of her. A text in her temple at Dendera says "in each nome it is she who is in every town, in every nome with her son Horus." In Ancient Egyptian art , Isis was most commonly depicted as a woman with

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2272-402: The divine king Osiris , and produces and protects his heir, Horus . She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh , who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she

2343-537: The eighth century BCE to the fourth century CE, absorbed and adapted the Egyptian ideology surrounding kingship. It equated Isis with the kandake , the queen or queen mother of the Kushite king. Meroitic script Though the Kingdom of Kush ended with the fall of the royal capital of Meroë, use of the language and Cursive script continued for a time after that event. During the 6th century Christianization of Nubia,

2414-506: The end of a word or morpheme (as when followed by the determiner -l; she proposes Meroitic finals were restricted to alveolar consonants such as these. An example is the Coptic word ⲡⲣⲏⲧ prit "the agent", which in Meroitic was transliterated perite (pa-e-ra-i-te). If Rowan is right and this was pronounced /pᵊrit/ , then Meroitic would have been a fairly typical abugida. She proposes that Meroitic had three vowels, /a i u/ , and that /a/

2485-565: The end of the dynasty and whose content may have developed much earlier. Several passages in the Pyramid Texts link Isis with the region of the Nile Delta near Behbeit el-Hagar and Sebennytos , and her cult may have originated there. Many scholars have focused on Isis's name in trying to determine her origins. Her Egyptian name was written as 𓊨𓏏𓆇𓁐 ( ꜣst ), the pronunciation of which changed over time: Rūsat > Rūsaʾ > ʾŪsaʾ > ʾĒsə , which became ⲎⲤⲈ ( Ēse ) in

2556-498: The feminine aspect of divinity. Whereas some Egyptian deities appeared in the late Predynastic Period (before c.  3100 BCE ), neither Isis nor her husband Osiris were mentioned by name before the Fifth Dynasty ( c.  2494–2345 BCE ). An inscription that may refer to Isis dates to the reign of Nyuserre Ini during that period, and she appears prominently in the Pyramid Texts , which began to be written down at

2627-451: The first complete royal dedication was found, which may help confirm or refute some of the current hypotheses. The longest inscription found is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . There were two graphic forms of the Meroitic alphasyllabary: monumental hieroglyphs, and a cursive . The majority of texts are cursive. Unlike Egyptian writing, there was a simple one-to-one correspondence between

2698-491: The foremost Egyptian deity during the Middle and New Kingdoms, also took on the role of Kamutef, and when he was in this form, Isis often acted as his consort. Apis , a bull that was worshipped as a living god at Memphis , was said to be Isis's son, fathered by a form of Osiris known as Osiris-Apis. The biological mother of each Apis bull was thus known as the "Isis cow". Isis was said to be the mother of Bastet by Ra . A story in

2769-429: The frontier with Nubian peoples who raided Egypt, she was described as the protectress of the entire nation, more effective in battle than "millions of soldiers", supporting Ptolemaic kings and Roman emperors in their efforts to subdue Egypt's enemies. Isis was also known for her magical power , which enabled her to revive Osiris and to protect and heal Horus, and for her cunning. By virtue of her magical knowledge, she

2840-475: The horns of a cow . In the first millennium BCE, Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its southern neighbor Nubia built temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple at Philae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she

2911-464: The king nursing at Isis's breast; her milk not only healed her child, but symbolized his divine right to rule. Royal ideology increasingly emphasized the importance of queens as earthly counterparts of the goddesses who served as wives to the king and mothers to his heirs. Initially the most important of these goddesses was Hathor, whose attributes in art were incorporated into queens' crowns. But because of her own mythological links with queenship, Isis too

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2982-511: The last generation of the Ennead, born to Geb , god of the earth, and Nut , goddess of the sky. The creator god, the world's original ruler, passes down his authority through the male generations of the Ennead, so that Osiris becomes king. Isis, who is Osiris's wife as well as his sister , is his queen. Set kills Osiris and, in several versions of the story, dismembers his corpse. Isis and Nephthys, along with other deities such as Anubis , search for

3053-425: The length and quality of human lives. Horus was equated with each living pharaoh and Osiris with the pharaoh's deceased predecessors. Isis was therefore the mythological mother and wife of kings. In the Pyramid Texts her primary importance to the king was as one of the deities who protected and assisted him in the afterlife. Her prominence in royal ideology grew in the New Kingdom. Temple reliefs from that time on show

3124-582: The moon, possibly because she was linked with the Greek lunar goddess Artemis by a shared connection with an Egyptian fertility goddess, Bastet . In hymns inscribed at Philae she is called the "Lady of Heaven" whose dominion over the sky parallels Osiris's rule over the Duat and Horus's kingship on earth. In Ptolemaic times Isis's sphere of influence could include the entire cosmos. As the deity that protected Egypt and endorsed its king, she had power over all nations, and as

3195-621: The pieces of their brother's body and reassemble it. Their efforts are the mythic prototype for mummification and other ancient Egyptian funerary practices . According to some texts, they must also protect Osiris's body from further desecration by Set or his servants. Isis is the epitome of a mourning widow. Her and Nephthys's love and grief for their brother help restore him to life, as does Isis's recitation of magical spells . Funerary texts contain speeches by Isis in which she expresses her sorrow at Osiris's death, her sexual desire for him, and even anger that he has left her. All these emotions play

3266-402: The power to predict or influence future events, as did other deities who presided over birth, such as Shai and Renenutet . Texts from much later times call Isis "mistress of life, ruler of fate and destiny" and indicate she has control over Shai and Renenutet, just as other great deities such as Amun were said to do in earlier eras of Egyptian history. By governing these deities, Isis determined

3337-525: The primary roles to local deities. At Philae, Isis is described as the creator in the same way that older texts speak of the work of the god Ptah , who was said to have designed the world with his intellect and sculpted it into being. Like him, Isis formed the cosmos "through what her heart conceived and her hands created". Like other deities throughout Egyptian history, Isis had many forms in her individual cult centers, and each cult center emphasized different aspects of her character. Local Isis cults focused on

3408-622: The protection of ships at sea. As Hellenistic culture was absorbed by Rome in the first century BCE, the cult of Isis became a part of Roman religion . Her devotees were a small proportion of the Roman Empire 's population but were found all across its territory. Her following developed distinctive festivals such as the Navigium Isidis , as well as initiation ceremonies resembling those of other Greco-Roman mystery cults . Some of her devotees said she encompassed all feminine divine powers in

3479-506: The provider of rain, she enlivened the natural world. The Philae hymn that initially calls her ruler of the sky goes on to expand her authority, so at its climax her dominion encompasses the sky, earth, and Duat. It says her power over nature nourishes humans, the blessed dead, and the gods. Other, Greek-language hymns from Ptolemaic Egypt call her "the beautiful essence of all the gods". In the course of Egyptian history, many deities, major and minor, had been described in similar grand terms. Amun

3550-537: The regenerative powers, including sexual potency, that were crucial for rebirth. Isis was thought to merely assist by stimulating this power. Feminine divine powers became more important in afterlife beliefs in the late New Kingdom. Various Ptolemaic funerary texts emphasize that Isis took the active role in Horus's conception by sexually stimulating her inert husband, some tomb decoration from the Roman period in Egypt depicts Isis in

3621-748: The reign of the shadowy Shepseskare . Known rulers in the Fifth Dynasty are listed below. Manetho assigns 248 years of rule to the Fifth Dynasty; however, the pharaohs of this dynasty more probably ruled for approximately 150 years. This estimate varies by both scholar and source. The Horus names and most names of the queens are taken from Dodson and Hilton. Manetho writes that the Dynasty V kings ruled from Elephantine , but archeologists have found evidence clearly showing that their palaces were still located at Ineb-hedj ("White Walls"). As before, expeditions were sent to Wadi Maghareh and Wadi Kharit in

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3692-564: The script, where every consonant is assumed to be followed by a vowel a, should have special letters for consonants followed by e. Such a mixed abugida–syllabary is not found among the abugidas of India, nor in Ethiopic. Old Persian cuneiform script is somewhat similar, with more than one inherent vowel, but is not an abugida because the non-inherent vowels are written with full letters, and are often redundantly written after an inherent vowel other than /a/. Millet (1970) proposed that Meroitic e

3763-459: The start of the Nile flood , gave Sopdet a close connection with the flood and the resulting growth of plants. Partly because of her relationship with Sopdet, Isis was also linked with the flood, which was sometimes equated with the tears she shed for Osiris. By Ptolemaic times she was connected with rain, which Egyptian texts call a "Nile in the sky"; with the sun as the protector of Ra's barque; and with

3834-451: The story seems to treat her as having such abilities even before learning his name. Many of the roles Isis acquired gave her an important position in the sky. Passages in the Pyramid Texts connect Isis closely with Sopdet , the goddess representing the star Sirius , whose relationship with her husband Sah —the constellation Orion —and their son Sopdu parallels Isis's relations with Osiris and Horus. Sirius's heliacal rising , just before

3905-433: The two forms of Meroitic, except that in the cursive form, consonants are joined in ligatures to a following vowel i . The direction of cursive writing was from right to left, top to bottom, while the monumental form was written top to bottom in columns going right to left. Monumental letters were oriented to face the beginning of the text, a feature inherited from their hieroglyphic origin. Being primarily alphasyllabic,

3976-415: The typical attributes of a goddess: a sheath dress, a staff of papyrus in one hand, and an ankh sign in the other. Her original headdress was the throne sign used in writing her name. She and Nephthys often appear together, particularly when mourning Osiris's death, supporting him on his throne, or protecting the sarcophagi of the dead. In these situations their arms are often flung across their faces, in

4047-474: The word for a throne or a lack of evidence that the throne was ever deified. The cycle of myth surrounding Osiris's death and resurrection was first recorded in the Pyramid Texts and grew into the most elaborate and influential of all Egyptian myths . Isis plays a more active role in this myth than the other protagonists, so as it developed in literature from the New Kingdom ( c.  1550 –1070 BCE) to

4118-477: The world. The worship of Isis was ended by the rise of Christianity in the fourth through sixth centuries CE. Her worship may have influenced Christian beliefs and practices such as the veneration of Mary , but the evidence for this influence is ambiguous and often controversial. Isis continues to appear in Western culture , particularly in esotericism and modern paganism , often as a personification of nature or

4189-781: The wrong. In later texts, she uses her powers of transformation to fight and destroy Set and his followers. Many stories about Isis appear as historiolae , prologues to magical texts that describe mythic events related to the goal that the spell aims to accomplish. In one spell, Isis creates a snake that bites Ra, who is older and greater than she is, and makes him ill with its venom. She offers to cure Ra if he will tell her his true, secret name —a piece of knowledge that carries with it incomparable power. After much coercion, Ra tells her his name, which she passes on to Horus, bolstering his royal authority. The story may be meant as an origin story to explain why Isis's magical ability surpasses that of other deities, but because she uses magic to subdue Ra,

4260-421: Was an Afro-Asiatic language like Egyptian. Rowan is not convinced that the system was completely alphabetic, and suggests that the glyph te also may have functioned as a determinative for place names, as it frequently occurs at the end of place names that are known not to have a /t/ in them. Similarly, ne may have marked royal or divine names. Meroitic scripts, both Hieroglyphic and Cursive, were added to

4331-481: Was based on that in the myth. She helped to restore the souls of deceased humans to wholeness as she had done for Osiris. Like other goddesses, such as Hathor , she also acted as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment. Thus, like Hathor, she sometimes took the form of Imentet , the goddess of the west, who welcomed the deceased soul into the afterlife as her child. But for much of Egyptian history, male deities such as Osiris were believed to provide

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4402-460: Was given the same titles and regalia as human queens. Isis's actions in protecting Osiris against Set became part of a larger, more warlike aspect of her character. New Kingdom funerary texts portray Isis in the barque of Ra as he sails through the underworld, acting as one of several deities who subdue Ra's archenemy, Apep . Kings also called upon her protective magical power against human enemies. In her Ptolemaic temple at Philae , which lay near

4473-400: Was in fact an epenthetic vowel used to break up Egyptian consonant clusters that could not be pronounced in the Meroitic language, or appeared after final Egyptian consonants such as m and k which could not occur finally in Meroitic. Rowan (2006) takes this further and proposes that the glyphs se, ne, and te were not syllabic at all, but stood for consonants /s/ , /n/ , and /t/ at

4544-406: Was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom ( c.  1550  – c.  1070 BCE ), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor , the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between

4615-517: Was most commonly described this way in the New Kingdom, whereas in Roman Egypt such terms tended to be applied to Isis. Such texts do not deny the existence of other deities but treat them as aspects of the supreme deity, a type of theology sometimes called " summodeism ". In the Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman Periods, many temples contained a creation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation to give

4686-486: Was often made of red jasper and likened to Isis's blood. Used as a funerary amulet , it was said to confer her protection on the wearer. Despite her significance in the Osiris myth, Isis was originally a minor deity in the ideology surrounding the living king. She played only a small role, for instance, in the Dramatic Ramesseum Papyrus , the script for royal rituals performed in the reign of Senusret I in

4757-525: Was omitted in writing when it occurred before any of several other consonants within a word. D is uncertain. Griffith first transcribed it as r, and Rowan believes that was closer to its actual value. It corresponds to Egyptian and Greek /d/ when initial or after an /n/ (unwritten in Meroitic), but to /r/ between vowels, and does not seem to have affected the vowel a the way the other alveolar obstruents t n s did. Comparing late documents with early ones, it

4828-466: Was raised to something like [e] or [ə] after the alveolar consonants /t s n/ , explaining the lack of orthographic t, s, n followed by the vowel letter e. Very rarely does one find the sequence C V C, where the C's are both labials or both velars. This is similar to consonant restrictions found throughout the Afro-Asiatic language family, suggesting to Rowan that there is a good chance Meroitic

4899-458: Was said to be "more clever than a million gods". In several episodes in the New Kingdom story " The Contendings of Horus and Set ", Isis uses these abilities to outmaneuver Set during his conflict with her son. On one occasion, she transforms into a young woman who tells Set she is involved in an inheritance dispute similar to Set's usurpation of Osiris's crown. When Set calls this situation unjust, Isis taunts him, saying he has judged himself to be in

4970-465: Was said to govern the natural world and wield power over fate itself. In the Hellenistic period (323–30 BCE), when Egypt was ruled and settled by Greeks , Isis was worshipped by Greeks and Egyptians, along with a new god, Serapis . Their worship diffused into the wider Mediterranean world. Isis's Greek devotees ascribed to her traits taken from Greek deities , such as the invention of marriage and

5041-423: Was syncretized with the fertility god Min , so Isis was regarded as Min's mother. A form of Min known as Kamutef, "bull of his mother", who represented the cyclical regeneration of the gods and of kingship, was said to impregnate his mother to engender himself. Thus, Isis was also regarded as Min's consort. The same ideology of kingship may lie behind a tradition, found in a few texts, that Horus raped Isis. Amun ,

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