Egyptian Goddess Cat

[Rell Jette]

Ancient Egyptian deities were an integral part of ancient Egyptian religion and were worshipped for millennia. Many of them ruled over natural and social phenomena, as well as abstract concepts.[1] These gods and goddesses appear in virtually every aspect of ancient Egyptian civilization, and more than 1,500 of them are known by name. Many Egyptian texts mention deities' names without indicating their character or role, while other texts refer to specific deities without even stating their name, so a complete list of them is difficult to assemble.[2]

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 was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and wield power over fate itself.

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 the feminine aspect of divinity.

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 the pieces of their brother's body and reassemble it. Their efforts are the mythic prototype for mummification and other ancient Egyptian funerary practices.[22] According to some texts, they must also protect Osiris's body from further desecration by Set or his servants.[23] 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.[24] 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 a part in his revival, as they are meant to stir him into action.[25] Finally, Isis restores breath and life to Osiris's body and copulates with him, conceiving their son, Horus.[22] 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.[26]

Isis's role in afterlife beliefs 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.[27] 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.[28] But for much of Egyptian history, male deities such as Osiris were believed to provide the regenerative powers, including sexual potency, that were crucial for rebirth. Isis was thought to merely assist by stimulating this power.[27] Feminine divine powers became more important in afterlife beliefs in the late New Kingdom.[29] Various Ptolemaic funerary texts emphasize that Isis took the active role in Horus's conception by sexually stimulating her inert husband,[30] some tomb decoration from the Roman period in Egypt depicts Isis in a central role in the afterlife,[31] and a funerary text from that era suggests that women were thought able to join the retinue of Isis and Nephthys in the afterlife.[32]

Isis is treated as the mother of Horus even in the earliest copies of the Pyramid Texts.[33] Yet there are signs that Hathor was originally regarded as his mother,[34] and other traditions make an elder form of Horus the son of Nut and a sibling of Isis and Osiris.[35] Isis may only have come to be Horus's mother as the Osiris myth took shape during the Old Kingdom,[34] but through her relationship with him she came to be seen as the epitome of maternal devotion.[36]

A story in 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.[50] She serves a similar role in New Kingdom texts that describe the divinely ordained births of reigning pharaohs.[51]

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 the power to predict or influence future events, as did other deities who presided over birth,[45] such as Shai and Renenutet.[52] Texts from much later times call Isis "mistress of life, ruler of fate and destiny"[45] 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 the length and quality of human lives.[52]

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.[53] Temple reliefs from that time on show the king nursing at Isis's breast; her milk not only healed her child, but symbolized his divine right to rule.[54] 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 was given the same titles and regalia as human queens.[55]

Isis's actions in protecting Osiris against Set became part of a larger, more warlike aspect of her character.[56] 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.[57] Kings also called upon her protective magical power against human enemies. In her Ptolemaic temple at Philae, which lay near 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.[56]

Isis was also known for her magical power, which enabled her to revive Osiris and to protect and heal Horus, and for her cunning.[58] By virtue of her magical knowledge, she was said to be "more clever than a million gods".[59][60] 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 the wrong.[60] In later texts, she uses her powers of transformation to fight and destroy Set and his followers.[58]

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;[66] and with the moon, possibly because she was linked with the Greek lunar goddess Artemis by a shared connection with an Egyptian fertility goddess, Bastet.[67] 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.[68]

In Ptolemaic times Isis's sphere of influence could include the entire cosmos.[68] As the deity that protected Egypt and endorsed its king, she had power over all nations, and as the provider of rain, she enlivened the natural world.[69] 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.[68] Other, Greek-language hymns from Ptolemaic Egypt call her "the beautiful essence of all the gods".[70] In the course of Egyptian history, many deities, major and minor, had been described in similar grand terms. Amun was most commonly described this way in the New Kingdom, whereas in Roman Egypt such terms tended to be applied to Isis.[71] 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".[72][73]

In the Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman Periods, many temples contained a creation myth that adapted long-standing ideas about creation to give the primary roles to local deities.[74] At Philae, Isis is described as the creator in the same way that older texts speak of the work of the god Ptah,[68] who was said to have designed the world with his intellect and sculpted it into being.[75] Like him, Isis formed the cosmos "through what her heart conceived and her hands created".[68]

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 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."[76]

In Ancient Egyptian art, Isis was most commonly depicted as a woman with 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 a gesture of mourning, or outstretched around Osiris or the deceased as a sign of their protective role.[77] 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,[78] or by a metaphor likening the kite's search for carrion to the goddesses' search for their dead brother.[77] Isis sometimes appeared in other animal forms: as a sow, representing her maternal character; as a cow, particularly when linked with Apis; or as a scorpion.[77] 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.[79]

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