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100-627: 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,

200-429: 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

300-579: 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,

400-534: 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

500-481: 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

600-584: 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

700-565: 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

800-451: 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

900-484: 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

1000-469: A pole mounting a pot, was a symbol associated both with Osiris as god of the underworld and with Anubis , god of mummification, was sometimes included among a deceased person's funerary equipment. The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set. According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of

1100-499: A ram-specific necropolis . Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus' father, as Banebdjed was an aspect of Osiris. Regarding the association of Osiris with the ram, the god's traditional crook and flail are the instruments of the shepherd, which has suggested to some scholars also an origin for Osiris in herding tribes of the upper Nile. Plutarch recounts one version of the Osiris myth in which Set (Osiris' brother), along with

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1200-574: A red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, the cakes of "divine" bread were made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god with the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead (XVII). The idea of divine justice being exercised after death for wrongdoing during life is first encountered during the Old Kingdom in a Sixth Dynasty tomb containing fragments of what would be described later as

1300-562: A shepherd god. The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherd's whip, fly-whisk, or association with the god Andjety of the ninth nome of Lower Egypt proposed. He was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green (the color of rebirth) or black (alluding to the fertility of the Nile floodplain) in mummiform (wearing the trappings of mummification from chest downward). The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with

1400-413: 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

1500-557: 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

1600-531: 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

1700-491: 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

1800-669: Is Permanently Benign and Youthful". The first evidence of the worship of Osiris is from the middle of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (25th century BC), although it is likely that he was worshiped much earlier; the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the First Dynasty , and was also used as a pharaonic title. Most information available on the Osiris myth is derived from allusions in the Pyramid Texts at

1900-415: 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

2000-672: 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/

2100-431: Is taken by the devourer is subject first to terrifying punishment and then annihilated. These depictions of punishment may have influenced medieval perceptions of the inferno in hell via early Christian and Coptic texts. Purification for those who are considered justified may be found in the descriptions of "Flame Island", where they experience the triumph over evil and rebirth. For the damned, complete destruction into

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2200-481: 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

2300-536: 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

2400-539: The Egyptian language . In Egyptian hieroglyphs the name appears as wsjr , which some Egyptologists instead choose to transliterate as ꜣsjr or jsjrj . Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels , Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways, such as Asar, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, or Usire. Several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name; as Egyptologist Mark J. Smith notes, none are fully convincing. Most take wsjr as

2500-517: The Negative Confessions performed in front of the 42 Assessors of Ma'at . At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges. If they led a life in conformance with the precepts of the goddess Ma'at , who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the kingdom of Osiris. If found guilty, the person was thrown to the soul-eating demon Ammit and did not share in eternal life. The person who

2600-627: The Nile Delta , whose beneficial rule led to him being revered as a god. The accoutrements of the shepherd, the crook and the flail – once insignia of the Delta god Andjety , with whom Osiris was associated – support this theory. Osiris is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek Ὄσιρις IPA: [ó.siː.ris] , which in turn is the Greek adaptation of the original name in

2700-531: 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

2800-523: 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 . Osiris Osiris ( / oʊ ˈ s aɪ r ɪ s / , from Egyptian wsjr ) was

2900-604: 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

3000-672: The god of fertility , agriculture, the afterlife , the dead, resurrection , life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion . He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy -wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail . He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, with her sister Nephthys, Osiris' wife, Isis, searched all over Egypt to find each part of Osiris. She collected all but one – Osiris’s manhood. She then wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris

3100-519: 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

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3200-614: 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

3300-599: 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

3400-703: 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

3500-576: The Queen of Ethiopia , conspired with 72 accomplices to plot the assassination of Osiris. Set fooled Osiris into getting into a box, which Set then shut, sealed with lead, and threw into the Nile. Osiris' wife, Isis , searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tamarisk tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast . She managed to remove

3600-524: The accepted transliteration, following Adolf Erman : However, recently alternative transliterations have been proposed: Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown, which is similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt , but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side. He also carries the crook and flail . The crook is thought to represent Osiris as

3700-470: The aspect and form of Seker-Osiris. Osiris' soul, or rather his ba , was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially in the Delta city of Mendes . This aspect of Osiris was referred to as Banebdjedet , which is grammatically feminine (also spelt " Banebded " or " Banebdjed "), literally "the ba of the lord of the djed , which roughly means The soul of

3800-408: The body of Osiris and hides it in the reeds where it is found and dismembered by Set. Isis retrieves and joins the fragmented pieces of Osiris, then briefly revives him by use of magic. This spell gives her time to become pregnant by Osiris. Isis later gives birth to Horus. Since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as a representation of new beginnings and the vanquisher of

3900-410: The coffin and retrieve her husband's body. In one version of the myth, Isis used a spell to briefly revive Osiris so he could impregnate her. After embalming and burying Osiris, Isis conceived and gave birth to their son, Horus. Thereafter Osiris lived on as the god of the underworld. Because of his death and resurrection, Osiris was associated with the flooding and retreating of the Nile and thus with

4000-478: The dead, they would unite with him and inherit eternal life through imitative magic. Through the hope of new life after death , Osiris began to be associated with the cycles in nature, in particular the sprouting of vegetation and the annual flooding of the Nile River , as well as the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year. He became the sovereign that granted all life, "He Who

4100-432: The death of the god, on the same day that grain was planted in the ground (Isis and Osiris, 13). The annual festival involved the construction of "Osiris Beds" formed in shape of Osiris, filled with soil and sown with seed. The germinating seed symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. An almost pristine example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun . The imiut emblem- an image of a stuffed, headless skin of an animal tied to

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4200-507: 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,

4300-470: 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

4400-402: 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

4500-547: 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,

4600-510: 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/

4700-584: The end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and " The Contendings of Horus and Seth ", and much later, in the narratives of Greek authors including Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus . Some Egyptologists believe the Osiris mythos may have originated in a former living ruler — possibly a shepherd who lived in Predynastic times (5500–3100 BC) in

4800-513: 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

4900-547: The extant information about the rites of Osiris can be found on the Ikhernofret Stela at Abydos erected in the Twelfth Dynasty by Ikhernofret , possibly a priest of Osiris or other official (the titles of Ikhernofret are described in his stela from Abydos) during the reign of Senwosret III (Pharaoh Sesostris, about 1875 BC). The ritual reenactment of Osiris's funeral rites were held in the last month of

5000-443: 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

5100-455: 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

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5200-495: 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

5300-549: The fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who "beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders.... When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined...they turn from mourning to rejoicing." ( De Errore Profanarum Religionum ). The passion of Osiris was reflected in his name 'Wenennefer" ("the one who continues to be perfect"), which also alludes to his post mortem power. B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Much of

5400-429: 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

5500-479: 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

5600-522: The inundation (the annual Nile flood), coinciding with Spring, and held at Abydos which was the traditional place where the body of Osiris drifted ashore after having been drowned in the Nile. The part of the myth recounting the chopping up of the body into 14 pieces by Set is not recounted in this particular stela. Although it is attested to be a part of the rituals by a version of the Papyrus Jumilhac, in which it took Isis 12 days to reassemble

5700-464: 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

5800-515: 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

5900-425: 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

6000-451: The lord of the pillar . The djed , a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris. The Nile supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetable regeneration) who died only to be resurrected, represented continuity and stability. As Banebdjed , Osiris was given epithets such as Lord of the Sky and Life of the ( sun god ) Ra . Ba does not mean "soul" in

6100-538: 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

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6200-435: The perfect king, Horus . Further, as attested by tomb-inscriptions, both women and men could syncretize (identify) with Osiris at their death, another set of evidence that underlines Osiris' androgynous nature. Plutarch and others have noted that the sacrifices to Osiris were "gloomy, solemn, and mournful..." (Isis and Osiris, 69) and that the great mystery festival, celebrated in two phases, began at Abydos commemorating

6300-621: 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

6400-608: The pieces, coinciding with the festival of ploughing. Some elements of the ceremony were held in the temple , while others involved public participation in a form of theatre. The Stela of Ikhernofret recounts the programme of events of the public elements over the five days of the Festival: Contrasting with the public "theatrical" ceremonies sourced from the Middle Kingdom Ikhernofret Stele, more esoteric ceremonies were performed inside

6500-402: 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

6600-525: 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

6700-635: 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

6800-506: 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

6900-545: 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

7000-569: 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

7100-463: 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

7200-451: 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

7300-604: The substance of Earth and Water." ( Isis and Osiris, 39). Yet his accounts were still obscure, for he also wrote, "I pass over the cutting of the wood" – opting not to describe it, since he considered it as a most sacred ritual ( Ibid. 21). In the Osirian temple at Denderah , an inscription (translated by Budge, Chapter XV, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection) describes in detail the making of wheat paste models of each dismembered piece of Osiris to be sent out to

7400-605: The sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty , is found: "An offering the king gives and Anubis " . By the end of the Fifth Dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes " An offering the king gives and Osiris ". Osiris is the mythological father of the god Horus , whose conception is described in the Osiris myth (a central myth in ancient Egyptian belief ). The myth describes Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set , who wanted Osiris' throne. His wife, Isis , finds

7500-404: The sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion . These ceremonies were fertility rites which symbolised the resurrection of Osiris. Recent scholars emphasize "the androgynous character of [Osiris'] fertility" clear from surviving material. For instance, Osiris' fertility has to come both from being castrated/cut-into-pieces and the reassembly by female Isis, whose embrace of her reassembled Osiris produces

7600-494: The temples by priests. Plutarch mentions that (for much later period) two days after the beginning of the festival "the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water...and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected). Then they knead some fertile soil with the water...and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these gods as

7700-409: The town where each piece is discovered by Isis. At the temple of Mendes, figures of Osiris were made from wheat and paste placed in a trough on the day of the murder, then water was added for several days, until finally the mixture was kneaded into a mold of Osiris and taken to the temple to be buried (the sacred grain for these cakes were grown only in the temple fields). Molds were made from the wood of

7800-433: 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,

7900-415: 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

8000-432: The usurper Set. Ptah-Seker (who resulted from the identification of the creator god Ptah with Seker ) thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris . As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and was subsequently "reborn" every morning, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified as king of the underworld , god of the afterlife , life, death, and regeneration. Osiris also has

8100-400: The western sense, and has to do with power, reputation, force of character, especially in the case of a god. Since the ba was associated with power, and also happened to be a word for ram in Egyptian , Banebdjed was depicted as a ram, or as Ram-headed. A living, sacred ram was kept at Mendes and worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and upon death, the rams were mummified and buried in

8200-480: 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

8300-482: 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

8400-781: 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,

8500-471: The yearly growth and death of crops along the Nile valley. Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris was described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts of civilization, including agriculture, then travelled the world with his sister Isis, the satyrs , and the nine muses , before finally returning to Egypt. Osiris was then murdered by his evil brother Typhon , who

8600-605: Was also a god of the Moon . Osiris was the judge and lord of the dead and the underworld , the "Lord of Silence" and Khenti-Amentiu , meaning "Foremost of the Westerners". In the Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) the pharaoh was considered a son of the sun god Ra who, after his death, ascended to join Ra in the sky. After the spread of the Osiris cult, however, the kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from

8700-421: 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

8800-481: 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

8900-460: 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

9000-651: Was identified with Set. Typhon divided the body into twenty-six pieces, which he distributed amongst his fellow conspirators in order to implicate them in the murder. Isis and Hercules (Horus) avenged the death of Osiris and slew Typhon. Isis recovered all the parts of Osiris' body, except the phallus , and secretly buried them. She made replicas of them and distributed them to several locations, which then became centres of Osiris worship. Annual ceremonies were performed in honor of Osiris in various places across Egypt. Evidences of which were discovered during underwater archaeological excavations of Franck Goddio and his team in

9100-400: 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

9200-406: 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

9300-527: 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

9400-497: 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

9500-530: 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

9600-472: 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

9700-458: 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

9800-471: 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

9900-423: 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 ,

10000-610: Was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire . Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut , as well as being brother and husband of Isis , and brother of Set , Nephthys , and Horus the Elder , with Horus the Younger being considered his posthumously begotten son. Through syncretism with Iah , he

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