Who was Isis?

2 ANSWERS

1. GiGi
   

   Isis was a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife, matron of nature and magic; friend of slaves, sinners, artisans, the downtrodden, as well as listening to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats and rulers. Isis is the Goddess of motherhood and fertility.
   Shortly after 2,500 B.C., during the fifth dynasty, the first written records concerning the worship of Isis appear. The Romans would spread her worship to the farthest reaches of their empire through cultural contact with the Egyptians, and particularly after Egypt was annexed to the Roman state in 30 B.C. This followed the invasion of Egypt by Alexander the Great and a Greek occupation for three hundred years beginning in 330 B.C. Although by differing degrees, the Greeks and the Romans adopted deities from the Egyptian pantheon and often interpreted some of their own gods as having a parallel with some of the Egyptian deities. This had the effect of giving Roman and Greek deities an earlier history—and could serve to imply a longer history for themselves. Many of the Egyptian deities were merged and renamed with those of the Greeks and Romans, but a few remained relatively unchanged. Isis, as the protector of all Egypt, would retain her unique Egyptian nature while also being worshipped in other cultures.
   The goddess Isis (the mother of Horus) was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, the goddess of the Overarching Sky, and was born on the fourth intercalary day. At some time Isis absorbed some characteristics of Hathor a powerful deity. He represented the pharaohs and provided them with protection. In later myths about Isis, she had a brother, Osiris, who became her husband, and she then was said to have conceived Horus. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Seth. Her magical skills restored his body to life after she gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Seth. This myth became very important in later Egyptian religious beliefs.

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2. GiGi
   

   Isis is also known as the goddess of simplicity, from whom all beginnings arose, and was the Lady of bread, of beer, and of green fields. In later myths, Ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of her tears of sorrow for her dead husband, Osiris. This occurrence of his death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals. The worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era.
   The pronunciation for this deity is a mispronunciation of the Greek name which itself changed the original Egyptian name spelling by the addition of a last "-s" because of the grammatical requirements of Greek endings.
   The Egyptian name was recorded as ?s.t or ?s.t and meant "(She of the) Throne." The true Egyptian pronunciation remains uncertain, however, because their writing system usually did not feature vowels. Based on recent studies which present us with approximations based on contemporary languages and Coptic evidence, the reconstructed, correct pronunciation of her name is thought to be *\'?u?.sat\ ("-uesat"). (Osiris's name—that is, Usir or Wsir—also starts with the throne glyph ?s ("-s").) Later, the name survived into Coptic dialects as Ese or Esi, as well as in compound words surviving in names of later people such as "Har-si-Ese", literally, "Horus, son of Isis".
   For convenience, Egyptologists arbitrarily choose to pronounce her name as "ee-set". Sometimes they may also say "ee-sa" because the final "t" in her name was a feminine suffix, which is known to have been dropped in speech during the last stages of the Egyptian language.
   Literally, her name means "she of the throne". Her original headdress was a throne. As the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaoh's power, as the pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but the most important sanctuaries were at Giza and at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta, which was in Lower Egypt.

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