💎 The single greatest medical breakthrough of all time 🩺

One that's bigger than the discovery of penicillin, germ theory, and the pacemaker...   [New Trading View Logo]( [New Trading View Logo]( [“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.” – Phil Knight, co-founder Nike]( Sometimes, colleagues of New Trading View share special offers with us that we think our readers should be made aware of. Below is one such special opportunity that we believe deserves your attention. Dear Fellow Investor, We are on the cusp of [a medical breakthrough]( One that's bigger than the discovery of penicillin, germ theory, and the pacemaker... Scientists have ALREADY started using this technology to accomplish what sounds like science fiction. They've cured blindness in rats... Made mosquitos sterile to help reduce the spread of malaria... And soon, [this single breakthrough]( could lead to the cure of over 6,000 genetic diseases... Including Alzheimer's, heart disease, and even cancer! Which is why The Nobel Laureate Committee is calling it the "Holy Grail of Medicine." This reminds me of Amgen, where early investors made as much as 46,751% when they released their revolutionary drug to the market. But this opportunity is much bigger. [Get all the details here ]( "The Buck Stops Here," [Dylan]   You are receiving our newsletter because you opted-in for it on one of our sister websites. Make sure you stay up to date with finance news by [whitelisting us](. Copyright © 2023 New Trading View.com All Rights Reserved[.]( This ad is sent on behalf of Behind The Markets, 4260 NW 1st Avenue, Suite # 55 Boca Raton, FL 33431 – 4264. If you would like to unsubscribe from receiving offers from Behind The Markets please [click here](. 234 5th Ave, New York, NY 10001, United States [Privacy Policy]( l [Terms & Conditions]( Thinking about unsubscribing? We hope not! But, if you must, the link is below. [Unsubscribe]( Goddess of magic and wisdom 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] 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.[19] 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.[60] 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, the story seems to treat her as having such abilities even before learning his name.[61] Sky goddess Many of the roles Isis acquired gave her an important position in the sky.[62] 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 the start of the Nile flood, gave Sopdet a close connection with the flood and the resulting growth of plants.[63] Partly because of her relationship with Sopdet, Isis was also linked with the flood,[64] which was sometimes equated with the tears she shed for Osiris.[65] 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] Universal goddess 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] Iconography 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] Beginning in the New Kingdom, thanks to the close links between Isis and Hathor, Isis took on Hathor's attributes, such as 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.[77] 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.[55] 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.[80][81] Some of these images reflected her linkage with other goddesses in novel ways. Isis-Thermuthis, 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.[82][Note 3] 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.[84] It 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.[85] Relief of a woman in Egyptian clothing with an elaborate headdress Isis with a combination of throne-glyph and cow horns, as well as a vulture headdress, Temple of Kalabsha, first century BCE or first century CE Relief of a woman kneeling on a stool and spreading her arms, to which wings are attached Winged Isis at the foot of the sarcophagus of Ramesses III, twelfth century BCE An illustration of Isis based on a painting in the tomb of Seti I An illustration of Isis based on a painting in the tomb of Seti I Fresco of a mummy lying on a bier. Women stand at the head and foot of the bier, while a winged woman kneels in the register above Isis, left, and Nephthys stand by as Anubis embalms the deceased, thirteenth century BCE. A winged Isis appears at top. Statue of a snake with the upper torso and head of a woman Figurine of Isis-Thermuthis, second century CE Statue of a woman with a very tall headdress lifting her dress up to the hips Figurine possibly of Isis-Aphrodite, second or first century BCE A red stone amulet shaped like a column with a looped top and two loops hanging at the sides A tyet amulet, fifteenth or fourteenth century BCE Worship Relationship with royalty 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 the Middle Kingdom.[86] Her importance grew during the New Kingdom,[87] when she was increasingly connected with Hathor and the human queen.[88] 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.[89] The Kingdom of Kush, which ruled Nubia from 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.[90] The Ptolemaic Greek kings, who ruled Egypt as pharaohs from 305 to 30 BCE, developed an ideology that linked them with both Egyptian and Greek deities, to strengthen their claim to the throne in the eyes of their Greek and Egyptian subjects. For centuries before, Greek colonists and visitors to Egypt had drawn parallels between Egyptian deities and their own, in a process known as interpretatio graeca.[91] Herodotus, a Greek who wrote about Egypt in the fifth century BCE, likened Isis to Demeter, whose mythical search for her daughter Persephone resembled Isis's search for Osiris. Demeter was one of the few Greek deities to be widely adopted by Egyptians in Ptolemaic times, so the similarity between her and Isis provided a link between the two cultures.[92] In other cases, Isis was linked with Aphrodite through the sexual aspects of her character.[93] Building on these traditions, the first two Ptolemies promoted the cult of the new god Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis with those of Greek gods such as Zeus and Dionysus. Isis, portrayed in a Hellenized form, was regarded as the consort of Serapis as well as of Osiris. Ptolemy II and his sister and wife Arsinoe II developed a ruler cult around themselves, so that they were worshipped in the same temples as Serapis and Isis, and Arsinoe was likened to both Isis and Aphrodite.[94] Some later Ptolemaic queens identified themselves still more closely with Isis. Cleopatra III, in the second century BCE, used Isis's name in place of her own in inscriptions, and Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of Egypt before it was annexed by Rome, used the epithet "the new Isis".[95] Temples and festivals Painting of an island seen from across a river channel. On the island stand a series of stone buildings, gateways, and colonnades. Philae as seen from Bigeh Island, painted by David Roberts in 1838 Down to the end of the New Kingdom, Isis's cult was closely tied to those of male deities such as Osiris, Min, or Amun. She was commonly worshipped alongside them as their mother or consort, and she was especially widely worshipped as the mother of various local forms of Horus.[96] Nevertheless, she had independent priesthoods at some sites[97] and at least one temple of her own, at Osiris's cult center of Abydos, during the late New Kingdom.[98] The earliest known major temples to Isis were the Iseion at Behbeit el-Hagar in northern Egypt and Philae in the far south. Both began construction during the Thirtieth Dynasty and were completed or enlarged by Ptolemaic kings.[99] Thanks to Isis's widespread fame, Philae drew pilgrims from across the Mediterranean.[100] Many other temples of Isis sprang up in Ptolemaic times, ranging from Alexandria and Canopus on the Mediterranean coast to Egypt's frontier with Nubia.[101] A series of temples of Isis stood in that region, stretching from Philae south to Maharraqa, and were sites of worship for both Egyptians and various Nubian peoples.[102] The Nubians of Kush built their own temples to Isis at sites as far south as Wad ban Naqa,[103] including one in their capital, Meroe.[104] The most frequent temple rite for any deity was the daily offering ritual, in which priests clothed the deity's cult image and offered it food.[105] In Roman times, temples to Isis in Egypt could be built either in Egyptian style, in which the cult image was in a secluded sanctuary accessible only to priests, and in a Greco-Roman style in which devotees were allowed to see the cult image.[106] Greek and Egyptian culture were highly intermingled by this time, and there may have been no ethnic separation between Isis's worshippers.[107] The same people may have prayed to Isis outside Egyptian-style temples and in front of her statue inside Greek-style temples.[106] Temples celebrated many festivals in the course of the year, some nationwide and some very local.[108] An elaborate series of rites were performed all across Egypt for Osiris during the month of Khoiak,[109] and Isis and Nephthys were prominent in these rites at least as early as the New Kingdom.[110] In Ptolemaic times, two women acted out the roles of Isis and Nephthys during Khoiak, singing or chanting in mourning for their dead brother. Their chants are preserved in the Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys and Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys.[110][111] Festivals dedicated to Isis eventually developed. In Roman times, Egyptians across the country celebrated her birthday, the Amesysia, by carrying the local cult statue of Isis through their fields, probably celebrating her powers of fertility.[112] The priests at Philae held a festival every ten days when the cult statue of Isis visited the neighboring island of Bigeh, which was said to be Osiris's place of burial, and the priests performed funerary rites for him. The cult statue also visited the neighboring temples to the south, even during the last centuries of activity at Philae when those temples were run by Nubian peoples outside Roman rule.[113] Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, including Egypt, during the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Egyptian temple cults died out, gradually and at various times, from a combination of lack of funds and Christian hostility.[114] Isis's temple at Philae, supported by its Nubian worshippers, still had an organized priesthood and regular festivals until at least the mid-fifth century CE, making it the last fully functioning temple in Egypt.[115][Note 4] Funerary Isis, left, and Nephthys as kites near the bier of a mummy, thirteenth century BCE In many spells in the Pyramid Texts, Isis and Nephthys help the deceased king reach the afterlife. In the Coffin Texts from the Middle Kingdom, Isis appears still more frequently, though in these texts Osiris is credited with reviving the dead more often than she is. New Kingdom sources such as the Book of the Dead describe Isis as protecting deceased souls as they face the dangers in the Duat. They also describe Isis as a member of the divine councils that judge souls' moral righteousness before admitting them into the afterlife, and she appears in vignettes standing beside Osiris as he presides over this tribunal.[117] Isis and Nephthys took part in funeral ceremonies, where two wailing women, much like those in the festival at Abydos, mourned the deceased as the two goddesses mourned Osiris.[118] Isis was frequently shown or alluded to in funerary equipment: on sarcophagi and canopic chests as one of the four goddesses who protected the Four Sons of Horus, in tomb art offering her enlivening milk to the dead, and in the tyet amulets that were often placed on mummies to ensure that Isis's power would shield them from harm.[119] Late funerary texts prominently featured her mourning for Osiris, and one such text, one of the Books of Breathing, was said to have been written by her for Osiris's benefit.[120] In Nubian funerary religion, Isis was regarded as more significant than her husband, because she was the active partner while he only passively received the offerings she made to sustain him in the afterlife.[121] Popular worship Unlike many Egyptian deities, Isis was rarely addressed in prayers,[122] or invoked in personal names, before the end of the New Kingdom.[123] From the Late Period on, she became one of the deities most commonly mentioned in these sources, which often refer to her kindly character and her willingness to answer those who call upon her for help.[124] Hundreds of thousands of amulets and votive statues of Isis nursing Horus were made during the first millennium BCE,[125] and in Roman Egypt she was among the deities most commonly represented in household religious art, such as figurines and panel paintings.[126] Isis was prominent in magical texts from the Middle Kingdom onward. The dangers Horus faces in childhood are a frequent theme in magical healing spells, in which Isis's efforts to heal him are extended to cure any patient. In many of these spells, Isis forces Ra to help Horus by declaring that she will stop the sun in its course through the sky unless her son is cured.[127] Other spells equated pregnant women with Isis to ensure that they would deliver their children successfully.[128] Egyptian magic began to incorporate Christian concepts as Christianity was established in Egypt, but Egyptian and Greek deities continued to appear in spells long after their temple worship had ceased.[129] Spells that may date to the sixth, seventh, or eighth centuries CE invoke the name of Isis alongside Christian figures.[130] In the Greco-Roman world Spread A hillside littered with broken columns. An intact set of columns, supporting a pediment, still stand. The remains of the temple of Isis on Delos The Temple of Isis in Pompeii Cossura bronze coin showing a portrait of Isis with Punic legend Cults based in a particular city or nation were the norm across the ancient world until the mid- to late first millennium BCE, when increased contact between different cultures allowed some cults to spread more widely. Greeks were aware of Egyptian deities, including Isis, at least as early as the Archaic Period (c. 700–480 BCE), and her first known temple in Greece was built during or before the fourth century BCE by Egyptians living in Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great late in that century created Hellenistic kingdoms around the Mediterranean and Near East, including Ptolemaic Egypt, and put Greek and non-Greek religions in much closer contact. The resulting diffusion of cultures allowed many religious traditions to spread across the Hellenistic world in the last three centuries BCE. The new mobile cults adapted greatly to appeal to people from a variety of cultures. The cults of Isis and Serapis were among those that expanded in this way.[131] Spread by merchants and other Mediterranean travelers, the cults of Isis and Serapis were established in Greek port cities at the end of the fourth century BCE and expanded throughout Greece and Asia Minor during the third and second centuries. The Greek island of Delos was an early cult center for both deities, and its status as a trading center made it a springboard for the Egyptian cults to diffuse into Italy.[132] Isis and Serapis were also worshipped at scattered sites in the Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic kingdom in the Middle East, as far east as Iran, though they disappeared from the region as the Seleucids lost their eastern territory to the Parthian Empire.[133] Greeks regarded Egyptian religion as exotic and sometimes bizarre, yet full of ancient wisdom.[134] Like other cults from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, the cult of Isis attracted Greeks and Romans by playing upon its exotic origins,[135] but the form it took after reaching Greece was heavily Hellenized.[136] Isis's cult reached Italy and the Roman sphere of influence at some point in the second century BCE.[137] It was one of many cults that were introduced to Rome as the Roman Republic's territory expanded in the last centuries BCE. Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of defining Roman cultural identity amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion.[138] In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on the Capitoline Hill, at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE.[137] The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them.[139] In the 50s and 40s BCE, when the crisis of the Roman Republic made many Romans fear that peace among the gods was being disrupted, the Roman Senate destroyed these shrines,[140][141] although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.[137] Egyptian cults faced further hostility during the Final War of the Roman Republic (32–30 BCE), when Rome, led by Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, fought Egypt under Cleopatra VII.[142] After Octavian's victory, he banned shrines to Isis and Serapis within the pomerium, the city's innermost, sacred boundary, but allowed them in parts of the city outside the pomerium, thus marking Egyptian deities as non-Roman but acceptable to Rome.[143] Despite being temporarily expelled from Rome during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE),[Note 5] the Egyptian cults gradually became an accepted part of the Roman religious landscape. The Flavian emperors in the late first century CE treated Serapis and Isis as patrons of their rule in much the same manner as traditional Roman deities such as Jupiter and Minerva.[145] Even as it was being integrated into Roman culture, Isis's worship developed new features that emphasized its Egyptian background.[146][147] The cults also expanded into Rome's western provinces, beginning along the Mediterranean coast in early imperial times. At their peak in the late second and early third centuries CE, Isis and Serapis were worshipped in most towns across the western empire, though without much presence in the countryside.[148] Their temples were found from Petra and Palmyra, in the Arabian and Syrian provinces, to Italica in Spain and Londinium in Britain.[149] By this time they were on a comparable footing with native Roman deities.[150] Roles Marble staue of a woman holding a rattle in one hand and a pitcher in the other. Roman statue of Isis, first or second century CE. She holds a sistrum and a pitcher of water, although these attributes were added in a seventeenth century renovation.[151] Isis's cult, like others in the Greco-Roman world, had no firm dogma, and its beliefs and practices may have stayed only loosely similar as it diffused across the region and evolved over time.[152][153] Greek aretalogies that praise Isis provide much of the information about these beliefs. Parts of these aretalogies closely resemble ideas in late Egyptian hymns like those at Philae, while other elements are thoroughly Greek.[154] Other information comes from Plutarch (c. 46–120 CE), whose book On Isis and Osiris interprets the Egyptian deities based on his Middle Platonist philosophy,[155] and from several works of Greek and Latin literature that refer to Isis's worship, especially a novel by Apuleius (c. 125–180 CE) known as Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, which ends by describing how the main character has a vision of the goddess and becomes her devotee.[156] Elaborating upon Isis's role as a wife and mother in the Osiris myth, aretalogies call her the inventor of marriage and parenthood. She was invoked to protect women in childbirth and, in ancient Greek novels such as the Ephesian Tale, to protect their virginity.[157] Some ancient texts called her the patroness of women in general.[158][159] Her cult may have served to promote women's autonomy in a limited way, with Isis's power and authority serving as a precedent, but in myth she was devoted to, and never fully independent of, her husband and son. The aretalogies show ambiguous attitudes toward women's independence: one says Isis made women equal to men, whereas another says she made women subordinate to their husbands.[160][161] Isis was often characterized as a moon goddess, paralleling the solar characteristics of Serapis.[162] She was also seen as a cosmic goddess more generally. Various texts claim she organized the behavior of the sun, moon, and stars, governing time and the seasons which, in turn, guaranteed the fertility of the earth.[163] These texts also credit her with inventing agriculture, establishing laws, and devising or promoting other elements of human society. This idea derives from older Greek traditions about the role of various Greek deities and culture heroes, including Demeter, in establishing civilization.[164] She also oversaw seas and harbors. Sailors left inscriptions calling upon her to ensure the safety and good fortune of their voyages. In this role she was called Isis Pelagia, "Isis of the Sea", or Isis Pharia, referring to a sail or to the island of Pharos, site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.[165] This form of Isis, which emerged in Hellenistic times, may have been inspired by Egyptian images of Isis in a barque, as well as by Greek deities who protected seafaring, such as Aphrodite.[166][167] Isis Pelagia developed an added significance in Rome. Rome's food supply was dependent on grain shipments from its provinces, especially Egypt. Isis therefore guaranteed fertile harvests and protected the ships that carried the resulting food across the seas—and thus ensured the well-being of the empire as a whole.[168] Her protection of the state was said to extend to Rome's armies, much as it was in Ptolemaic Egypt, and she was sometimes called Isis Invicta, "Unconquered Isis".[169] Her roles were so numerous that she came to be called myrionymos, "one with countless names," and panthea, "all-goddess".[170] Both Plutarch and a later philosopher, Proclus, mentioned a veiled statue of the Egyptian goddess Neith, whom they conflated with Isis, citing it as an example of her universality and enigmatic wisdom. It bore the words "I am all that has been and is and will be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle."[171][Note 6] Isis was also said to benefit her followers in the afterlife, which was not much emphasized in Greek and Roman religion.[174] The Golden Ass and inscriptions left by worshippers of Isis suggest that many of her followers thought she would guarantee them a better afterlife in return for their devotion. They characterized this afterlife inconsistently. Some said they would benefit from Osiris's enlivening water while others expected to sail to the Fortunate Isles of Greek tradition.[175] As in Egypt, Isis was said to have power over fate, which in traditional Greek religion was a power not even the gods could defy. Valentino Gasparini says this control over destiny binds together Isis's disparate traits. She governs the cosmos, yet she also relieves people of their comparatively trivial misfortunes, and her influence extends into the realm of death, which is "individual and universal at the same time".[176] Relationships with other deities Fresco of a seated woman with a cobra wrapped around her arm grasping the hand of a standing woman with small horns on her head Isis welcoming Io to Egypt, from a fresco at Pompeii, first century CE More than a dozen Egyptian deities were worshipped outside Egypt in Hellenistic and Roman times in a series of interrelated cults, though many were fairly minor.[177] Of the most important of these deities, Serapis was closely connected with Isis and often appeared with her in art, but Osiris remained central to her myth and prominent in her rituals.[178] Temples to Isis and Serapis sometimes stood next to each other, but it was rare for a single temple to be dedicated to both.[179] Osiris, as a dead deity unlike the immortal gods of Greece, seemed strange to Greeks and played only a minor role in Egyptian cults in Hellenistic times. In Roman times he became, like Dionysus, a symbol of a joyous afterlife, and the Isis cult increasingly focused on him.[180] Horus, often under the name Harpocrates, also appeared in Isis's temples as her son by Osiris or Serapis. He absorbed traits from Greek deities such as Apollo and served as a god of the sun and of crops.[181] Another member of the group was Anubis, who was linked to the Greek god Hermes in his Hellenized form Hermanubis.[182] Isis was also sometimes said to have learned her wisdom from, or even be the daughter of, Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge, who was known in the Greco-Roman world as Hermes Trismegistus.[183][184] Isis also had an extensive network of connections with Greek and Roman deities, as well as some from other cultures. She was not fully integrated into the Greek pantheon, but she was at different times equated with a variety of Greek mythological figures, including Demeter, Aphrodite, or Io, a human woman who was turned into a cow and chased by the goddess Hera from Greece to Egypt.[185] The cult of Demeter was an especially important influence on Isis's worship after its arrival in Greece.[186] Isis's relationship with women was influenced by her frequent equation with Artemis, who had a dual role as a virgin goddess and a promoter of fertility.[187] Because of Isis's power over fate, she was linked with the Greek and Roman personifications of fortune, Tyche and Fortuna.[188] At Byblos in Phoenicia in the second millennium BCE, Hathor had been worshipped as a form of the local goddess Baalat Gebal; Isis gradually replaced Hathor there in the course of the first millennium BCE.[189] In Noricum in central Europe, Isis was syncretized with the local tutelary deity Noreia,[190] and at Petra she may have been linked with the Arab goddess al-Uzza.[191] The Roman author Tacitus said Isis was worshipped by the Suebi, a Germanic people living outside the empire, but he may have mistaken a Germanic goddess for Isis because, like her, the goddess was symbolized by a ship.[192] Many of the aretalogies include long lists of goddesses with whom Isis was linked. These texts treat all the deities they list as forms of her, suggesting that in the eyes of the authors she was a summodeistic being: the one goddess for the entire civilized world.[193][194] In the Roman religious world, many deities were referred to as "one" or "unique" in religious texts like these. At the same time, Hellenistic philosophers frequently saw the unifying, abstract principle of the cosmos as divine. Many of them reinterpreted traditional religions to fit their concept of this highest being, as Plutarch did with Isis and Osiris.[195] In The Golden Ass Isis says "my one person manifests the aspects of all the gods and goddesses" and that she is "worshipped by all the world under different forms, with various rites, and by manifold names," although the Egyptians and Nubians use her true name, Isis.[196][197] But when she lists the forms in which various Mediterranean peoples worship her, she mentions only female deities.[198] Greco-Roman deities were firmly divided by gender, thus limiting how universal Isis could truly be. One aretalogy avoids this problem by calling Isis and Serapis, who was often said to subsume many male gods, the two "unique" deities.[199][200] Similarly, both Plutarch and Apuleius limit Isis's importance by treating her as ultimately subordinate to Osiris.[201] The claim that she was unique was meant to emphasize her greatness more than to make a precise theological statement.[199][200] Iconography Images of Isis made outside Egypt were Hellenistic in style, like many of the images of her made in Egypt in Hellenistic and Roman times. The attributes she bore varied widely.[202] She sometimes wore the Hathoric cow-horn headdress, but Greeks and Romans reduced its size and often interpreted it as a crescent moon.[203] She could also wear headdresses incorporating leaves, flowers, or ears of grain.[204] Other common traits included corkscrew locks of hair and an elaborate mantle tied in a large knot over the breasts, which originated in ordinary Egyptian clothing but was treated as a symbol of the goddess outside Egypt.[205][Note 7] In her hands she could carry a uraeus or a sistrum, both taken from her Egyptian iconography,[207] or a situla, a vessel used for libations of water or milk that were performed in Isis's cult.[208] As Isis-Fortuna or Isis-Tyche she held a rudder, representing control of fate, in her right hand and a cornucopia, standing for abundance, in her left.[209] As Isis Pharia she wore a cloak that billowed behind her like a sail, and as Isis Lactans, she nursed Harpocrates.[210] At times she was shown resting a foot on a celestial sphere, representing her control of the cosmos.[211] The diverse imagery sprang from her varied roles; as Robert Steven Bianchi says, "Isis could represent anything to anyone and could be represented in any way imaginable."[212] Bust of a woman set in a niche Bust of Isis-Sothis-Demeter from Hadrian's Villa, second century CE Life-size statue of a woman Statue of Isis-Persephone with corkscrew locks of hair and a sistrum, from Gortyna, second century CE Isis-Aphrodite, polychrome terracotta, Alexandria, first century CE Isis-Aphrodite, polychrome terracotta, Alexandria, first century CE Metal figurine of a woman Bronze figurine of Isis-Fortuna with a cornucopia and a rudder, first century CE Fresco of a woman standing with her foot on a blue sphere Fresco of Isis wearing a crescent headdress and resting her foot on a celestial sphere, first century CE Anubis, Harpocrates, Isis and Serapis, fresco from Pompeii Anubis, Harpocrates, Isis and Serapis, fresco from Pompeii Worship Adherents and priests Like most cults of the time, the Isis cult did not require its devotees to worship Isis exclusively, and their level of commitment probably varied greatly.[213] Some devotees of Isis served as priests in a variety of cults and underwent several initiations dedicated to different deities.[214] Nevertheless, many emphasized their strong devotion to her, and some considered her the focus of their lives.[215] They were among the very few religious groups in the Greco-Roman world to have a distinctive name for themselves, loosely equivalent to "Jew" or "Christian", that might indicate they defined themselves by their religious affiliation. However, the word—Isiacus or "Isiac"—was rarely used.[213] Isiacs were a very small proportion of the Roman Empire's population,[216] but they came from every level of society, from slaves and freedmen to high officials and members of the imperial family.[217] Ancient accounts imply that Isis was popular with lower social classes, providing a possible reason why authorities in the Roman Republic, troubled by struggles between classes, regarded her cult with suspicion.[218] Women were more strongly represented in the Isis cult than in most Greco-Roman cults, and in imperial times, they could serve as priestesses in many of the same positions in the hierarchy as their male counterparts.[219] Women make up much less than half of the Isiacs known from inscriptions and are rarely listed among the higher ranks of priests,[220] but because women are underrepresented in Roman inscriptions, their participation may have been greater than is recorded.[221] Several Roman writers accused Isis's cult of encouraging promiscuity among women. Jaime Alvar suggests the cult attracted male suspicion simply because it gave women a venue to act outside their husbands' control.[222] Priests of Isis were known for their distinctive shaven heads and white linen clothes, both characteristics drawn from Egyptian priesthoods and their requirements of ritual purity.[223] A temple of Isis could include several ranks of priests, as well as various cultic associations and specialized duties for lay devotees.[224] There is no evidence of a hierarchy overseeing multiple temples, and each temple may well have functioned independently of the others.[225] [New Trading View Logo](