Isis is the feminine archetype for creation - the goddess of fertility and motherhood. She has gone by many names and played many roles in history and mythology - as goddess and female creator.

Her name literally means female of throne, i.e. Queen of the throne. Her original headdress was an empty throne chair belonging to her murdered husband, Osiris. As the personification of the throne, she was an important source of the Pharaoh's power. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but the most important sanctuaries were at Giza and at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta.

The hieroglyph for her name originally used meant (female) of flesh, i.e. mortal, and she may simply have represented deified, real, queens. The most commonly used name for this deity, Isis, is a Greek corruption of the Egyptian name; and its pronunciation as eye-sis is a further corruption by English speakers.

The true Egyptian pronunciation is unknown, as Egyptian hieroglyphs only recorded consonants, and left out most of the vowels. The Egyptian hieroglyphics for her name are commonly transliterated as jst; as a convenience, Egyptlogists pronounce that as ee-set.

Other symbols linked with her include the tat,

knot or buckle, and the sustrum (rattle)

Titles

In the Book of the Dead, Isis was described as She who gives birth to heaven and earth, knows the orphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor, and shelter for the weak. Some of Isis' many other titles were:

• Queen of Heaven,
• Mother of the Gods,
• The One Who is All,
• Lady of Green Crops,
• The Brilliant One in the Sky,
• Her Latin name was Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea,
• Great Lady of Magic,
• goddess of magic, fertility, nature, motherhood,
• underworld Mistress of the House of Life,
• She Who Knows How To Make Right Use of the Heart,
• Light-Giver of Heaven,
• Lady of the Words of Power,
• Moon Shining Over the Sea.

Isis later had an important cult in the Greco-Roman world, with sanctuaries at Delos and Pompeii. To the Greeks she was known as Demeter - to the Romans as Ceres - though she played other goddess roles in all ancient civilizations.

The symbol of Isis in the heavens was the star Sept (Sirius), which was greatly beloved because its appearance marked not only the beginning of a new year, but also announced the advance of the Inundation of the Nile, which betokened renewed wealth and prosperity of the country.

Isis was regarded as the companion of Osiris,
whose soul dwelt in the star Sah - Orion.

She was the light-giver at this season of the year and was called Khut.

As the mighty earth-goddess her name was Usert.

As the Great Goddess of the Underworld she was Thenenet.

As the power which shot forth the Nile flood, she was Sati, and Sept.

As the embracer of the land and producer of fertility by her waters she was Anqet.

As the producer and giver of life she was Ankhet.

As the goddess of cultivated lands and fields she was Sekhet.

As the goddess of the harvest she was Renenet.

As the goddess of food which was offered to the gods, she was Tcheft, and lived in the Temple of Tchefau.

As the great lady of the Underworld, who assisted in transforming the bodies of the blessed dead into those wherein they were to live in the realm of Osiris, she was Ament - the "hidden" goddess. As Ament she was declared to be the mother of Ra.

In this last capacity she shared with Osiris the attribute of 'giver of life,' and she provided food for the dead as well as for the living.

At a comparatively early period in Egyptian history Isis had absorbed the attributes of all the great primitive goddesses, and of all the local goddesses such as Nekhebet, Uatchet, Net, Bast, Hathor, etc., and she was even identified as the female counterpart of the primeval abyss of water from which sprang all life.

It is manifestly impossible to limit the attributes of Isis, for we have seen that she possesses the powers of a water goddess, an earth goddess, a corn goddess, a star goddess, a queen of the Underworld, and a woman, and that she united in herself one or more of the attributes of all the goddesses of Egypt known to us.

Origins

Her origins are uncertain but are believed to come from the Nile Delta; however unlike other Egyptian deities she did not have a centralised cult at any point throughout her worship. First mentions of Isis date back to the 5th dynasty, but her cult became prominent late in Egyptian history, when it began to absorb the cults of many other goddesses. It eventually spread outside Egypt throughout the Middle East and Europe, with temples to her built as far away as the British Isles. Pockets of her worship remained in Christian Europe as late as the 6th century.

Priesthood

Little information on Egyptian priests of Isis survives; however it is clear there were both male and female priests of her cult throughout her early history. By the Graeco-Roman era, all priestesses of Isis are female. Many of them were healers and midwives, and were said to have many special powers, including dream interpretation and the ability to control the weather by braiding or combing their hair, the latter of which was because the ancient Egyptians considered knots to have magical power.

Worship - Temples

Most Egyptian deities started off as strictly local, and throughout their history retained local centers of worship, with most major cities and towns widely known as the hometowns to their deities. However, no traces of local Isis cults are found; throughout her early history there are also no known temples dedicated to her.

Individual worship of Isis does not begin until as late as the 30th dynasty; until that time Isis was depicted and apparently worshipped in temples of other deities. However, even then Isis is not worshipped individually, but rather together with Horus and Osiris. Temples dedicated specifically to Isis become wide-spread only in the Roman times.

By this period, temples to Isis begin to spread outside of Egypt. In many locations, particularly Byblos, her cult takes over that of worship to the Semitic goddess Astarte, apparently due to the similarity of names and associations.

During the Hellenic era, due to her attributes as a protector, and mother, and the lusty aspect originally from Hathor, she was also made the patron goddess of sailors. Throughout the Graeco-Roman world, Isis becomes one of the most significant of the mystery religions, and many classical writers refer to her temples, cults and rites. The cult of Isis rose to prominence in the Hellenistic world, beginning in the last centuries BC, until it was eventually banned by the Christians in the 6th century.

Despite the Isis mystery cult's growing popularity, there is evidence to suggest that the Isis mysteries were not altogether welcomed by the ruling classes in Rome. Her rites were considered by the princeps Augustus to be "pornographic" and capable of destroying the Roman moral fibre.

Tacitus writes that after Julius Caesar's assassination, a temple in honour of Isis had been decreed; Augustus suspended this, and tried to turn Romans back to the Roman gods who were closely associated with the state. Eventually the Roman emperor Caligula abandoned the Augustan wariness towards Oriental cults, and it was in his reign that the Isiac festival was established in Rome. According to Josephus, Caligula himself donned female garb and took part in the mysteries he instituted, and Isis acquired in the Hellenistic age a "new rank as a leading goddess of the Mediterranean world."

Roman perspectives on cult were syncretic, seeing in a new deity merely local aspects of a familiar one. For many Romans, Egyptian Isis was an aspect of Phrygian Cybele, whose orgiastic rites were long naturalized at Rome, indeed she was known as Isis of Ten Thousand Names.

In the Golden Ass (1st century), Apuleius' goddess Isis is identified with Cybele.

Temples to Isis were also built in Iraq, Greece, Rome, even as far north as England where the remains of a temple were discovered at Hadrian's Wall.

At Philae her worship persisted until the 6th century, long after the wide acceptance of Christianity.

The Isis Temple on Philae was built in the 30th Dynasty on an island in the Nile - originally faced a neighboring island, Biga, which was reserved for the priesthood of Osiris and was believed to be the first land to have emerged from the primordial chaos as well as supposedly being one of the burial places of Osiris.

Looking out from the temple sanctuary, or Holy of Holies, where the goddess resides. The sanctuary was thought to be the source of the waters of life and was once separated from the rest of the temple by a curtain.

Looking out from the temple sanctuary, or Holy of Holies, where the goddess resides. The sanctuary was thought to be the source of the waters of life and was once separated from the rest of the temple by a curtain.

The first pylon (the wall surrounding the entrance) is 18 metres high and 45 metres wide. The base stones represent the stones which appear as the waters of life recede.The small door in the west section of the pylon leads to the Birth House. At right angles to the pylon is the Gate of Ptolemy. The main portal in the center dates from Nectanebo II.

The second pylon shows pharoah (Neos Dionysos) offering sacrifice to Horus and Hathor; in the smaller scenes (above) he offers a wreath to Horus and Nephthys and incense before Osiris, Isis and Horus.

Associations

Because of the association between knots and magical power, a symbol of Isis was the tiet/tyet (meaning welfare/life), also called the Knot of Isis, Buckle of Isis, or the Blood of Isis.

The tiet in many respects resembles an ankh, except that its arms curve down, and in all these cases seems to represent the idea of eternal life/resurrection.

The meaning of Blood of Isis is more obscured, but the tyet was often used as a funerary amulet made of red wood, stone, or glass, so this may have simply been a description of its appearance.

The star Spica (sometimes called Lute Bearer), and the constellation which roughly corresponded to the modern Virgo, appeared at a time of year associated with the harvest of wheat and grain, and thus with fertility gods and goddesses. Consequently they were associated with Hathor, and hence with Isis through her later conflation with Hathor. Isis also assimilated Sopdet, the personification of Sirius, since Sopdet, rising just before the flooding of the Nile, was seen as a bringer of fertility, and so had been identified with Hathor. Sopdet still retained an element of distinct identity, however, as Sirius was quite visibly a star and not living in the underworld - Isis being the wife of Osiris, king of the underworld.

In the duality of our reality - Isis represents our feminine aspects - creation - rebirth - ascension - intuition - psychic abilties - higher chakras - higher frequency virbations - love and compassion. She is the Yin energies - the mother nurturer - the High Priestess - the Goddess of all mythological tales - to other female icons in the mythologies of creation. She is the essence of the feminine energy which is part of us all.

Isis - the iris of the eye - the eye of Horus Isis linked with Sirius - eye of Ra - and the source of creation. Osiris - 'O'=completion of the work of Isis of this level.