Chapter 28

Isis and Osiris

 The Spread of the Influence
of the Myth of Isis
• The myth of Isis and Osiris originated in Egypt.
• Egyptian businessmen in some cases carried their religion with them, but up
to classical times (fifth century B.C.E.), there was not much attempt to make
converts in the rest of the world.
• The establishment of the Serapeum (temple of Serapis) in Alexandria in the
fourth century B.C.E. extended Egyptian influence on religion in the Greco-
Roman world.
• With the rise of Rome, some stories about Isis became well known
throughout the empire.
• The worship of Isis became the basis of an important personal religion that,
like the cult of Demeter, involved an elaborate initiation ceremony into
secret mysteries.
• It persisted in the Roman Empire at least until 394 C.E. Some emperors
erected temples in honor of the goddess in the center of Rome; at other
times, her worship was persecuted by the Romans and eventually by the
Christians.
 History of Egypt
• Early Dynastic period, 3100–2686 B.C.E.
• Old Kingdom, 2686–2181 B.C.E. The great pyramids were
built in this era.
• First Intermediate period, 2181–2040 B.C.E.
• Middle Kingdom, 2040–1650 B.C.E.
• Second Intermediate period, 1750–1550 B.C.E.
• New Kingdom, 1550–ca. 1069 B.C.E.
• Third Intermediate period, ca. 1069–656 B.C.E.
• Late Period, ca. 664–343 B.C.E.
• Greco-Roman period, 332 B.C.E.–642 C.E.
 Main Religious and Cultural
Centers
• Each era and location had its version of a creation story.
– Memphis. At the beginning of Egypt’s history, Menes, the king of Upper
Egypt (the southern part), unified the country by conquering Lower
Egypt (the northern part) and establishing a capital at Memphis, near
modern-day Cairo, where he founded a temple to the creator god Ptah.
– Heliopolis, near Memphis, the dominant city of the Old Kingdom. The
priests of Heliopolis formulated a creation story that incorporated a
previously existing cycle of myths about Osiris into a story featuring
Atum the sun god.
– Hermopolis, in Middle Egypt, was an administrative center of the Middle
Kingdom. According to the creation story based there, which may have
been a scientific account, there were eight gods (an Ogdoad) consisting
of four male–female pairs representing the primeval forces of nature.
– Thebes, in the south, became the capital after Memphis. At the end of
the First Intermediate period, Theban prince Mentuhotep reunited Egypt
and initiated the Middle Kingdom, though later kings returned the capital
to the north. Amun was the predominant god of Thebes. Theologians
there maintained that all significant gods are simply projections of
Amun.
 Best-Known Egyptian Deities

• Atum – Sun god of Heliopolis in Lower Egypt.

• Re – A Sun god whose cult was centered in Heliopolis.

Later Re became merged with Amun into a deity known
as Amun Re.

• Amun (“the hidden one”) – A god whose worship

originated in Thebes, but who was also worshipped in
Hermopolis. Amun caused the ram-headed Khnum to
create human beings as a potter who moulds clay on a
potter’s wheel.
 Best-Known Egyptian Deities, 2
• Hathor (“the mansion of Horus”) – Perhaps the first great mother
goddess; represented with the attributes of a cow; a goddess of love
and joy.
• Horus (“the one who is above”) – A sky god with a falcon shape, he
represented the living, reigning, king of Egypt, and his name was
used for the king.
• Osiris (“the Seat of the Eye”: the place where the sun goes) – A
deity associated with earth; thought by some scholars to represent a
pre-dynastic king of Egypt. Osiris’ return from the dead provides the
rationale for perhaps the best-known aspect of ancient Egyptian
culture, the mummification practices intended to allow the survival of
the body and accord eternal life to the deceased.
• Anubis – A deity represented as a jackal or a jackal-headed human.
He conducts the final judgment before Osiris.
 The Creation Story from
Heliopolis
This story resulted in the development of the Ennead or group of nine
gods.

Return to Plutarch Adapted from G. Hart, Egyptian Myths, p. 15.

 Sources for Egyptian Myth
• Pyramid Texts – The oldest texts available as sources
for Egyptian mythology. They were inscribed by
Pharaohs, starting with Unas (2375–2345 B.C.E.) on the
Pyramid at Saqqara.
• Coffin Texts – Most are later than the Pyramid Texts and
were written on the insides of the coffins of private
individuals, not kings.
• Both Pyramid and Coffin Texts are for the most part
“working texts,” which referred to stories familiar to
everyone, but put those texts to work to accomplish a
ritual result.
 Coffin Texts, Spell 76
• One of the Shu Texts designed to show the multiplicity
and timelessness of the god Shu.
• Shu has already been created by Atum, the sun god.
The first stage of Creation is Shu and Tefnut (or
Tefenet), the combination of Air and Moisture.
• Then comes the separation of Sky (Nut) from Shu.
• After raising up the sky, Shu sets Geb (Earth) under his
feet.
• The excerpt (pp. 408–409) portrays the act of creation as
tantamount to the act of unifying Egypt from “the Two
Lands,” the Upper and Lower Kingdoms.
 Hymn from Pyramid Texts
• Prayer, spoken first to Osiris and then to Nut,
calls upon them to take the deceased king into
their protection and assure him everlasting life.
• The hymn speaks to the dead king under the
name of Osiris.
• The hymn is based on a ritual in which the coffin
lid, symbolizing Nut, is lowered on the base,
symbolizing Geb. Nut is the mother of Osiris.
 Coffin Texts, Spell 74
• This text is thought to be related to an eight-day
ritual performed in the Middle Kingdom at the
temple of Osiris in Abydos.
• The ritual was performed to call forth the rising
waters of the Nile to flood the dead land,
represented as Osiris.
• It is Isis who gives Osiris new life. With her sister
Nephthys, she ministers to the unconscious god
and gets him to rise on one side: the flood
waters were believed to pour from the thigh of
Osiris to revitalize the land.
 Isis in the Early Roman Empire
• In the early Roman empire (27 B.C.E.–200 C.E.), Isis became well established
in the Greek centers of Eleusis and Delphi.
• Her worship grew in northern Greece and Athens. Harbors were dedicated
to her in the Arabian Gulf and the Black Sea.
• As her cult spread, the role of Isis became broadened and universalized.
She became the queen of heaven and the mother goddess par excellence,
the healer and the sorceress above all others.
• As the cult of Isis spread, she became identified with a variety of gods and
goddesses through syncretism:
– Demeter
– Aesclepias, the Greek god of medicine and healing
– Aphrodite, the goddess of love
– Tyche, the goddess of fortune
– Artemis, goddess of the hunt
– Cybele, the Great Mother and Astarte
 Syncretism
• Syncretism means that the names and attributes of
various gods are mingled, and the rituals and beliefs of
different regions become intertwined.
• This concept is also discussed in Chapter 31 as relating
to the worship of Heracles (p. 447).
• (Back)
 Plutarch as a Transmitter of
Egyptian Myth
• Plutarch was a Greek who lived from 40 to 120 C.E.
• He wrote the story of Isis and Osiris. We have no other
complete account of the story of Isis, and none from an
Egyptian source.
• His primary concern was to show the superiority of
Greek philosophy to Egyptian cult, which he regarded as
atheistic and barbaric.
• His account is confusing because of his assimilations, as
explained in the next slide.
• However, several ancient Egyptian sources corroborate
his story of a battle between Typhon (Seth) and Horus
(Apollo) for the kingship of Egypt.
 Assimilation
Plutarch created a confusing account by assimilating the
Egyptian deities into what he regards as their Greek
equivalents:
– Cronus and Rhea are the equivalents of Nut and Geb, gods of
heaven and earth.
– Plutarch’s Rhea (=Nut) is represented as bearing children from
Helius (=Re), Geb, and Hermes (=Thoth).
– He represents Hermes (Thoth) as playing draughts with the
Moon. This opponent seems to represent darkness, and so is
likely to have been the Egyptian god Seth, whom Plutarch later
represents as Typhon.
– He distorts the Ennead (“group of nine gods”) of Heliopolis by
inserting into it the elder Horus as a sibling of Isis and Osiris.
The order of the children of Geb and Nut is Osiris, Aroueris or
Apollo (elder Horus), Typhon (Seth), Isis, Nephthys.
 The Birth of Osiris and Isis,
with Plutarch’s Assimilations in Brackets.
Compare with the version from Heliopolis by clicking here.

• Rhea [Nut] secretly has intercourse with Cronus [Geb]. Helius

comes to know about it and sets on her a curse that she
should not give birth in any month or year. Then Hermes
[Thoth], falling in love with the goddess, becomes intimate
with her, and then plays draughts against the Moon.
• On the first day, Osiris is born. On the second day, it is said,
Aroueris is born, whom some call Apollo and the elder Horus.
On the third Typhon [Seth] is born. On the fourth day Isis is
born, near very moist places, and on the fifth Nephthys, whom
some call Teleutê (End) and Aphrodite, and some call Nikê
(Victory), is born.
• Osiris and Aroueris are the offspring of Helius, Isis of Hermes
[Thoth], and Typhon [Seth] and Nephthys of Cronus [Geb].
• Nephthys marries Typhon, and Isis marries Osiris.
 The Rivalry of Seth and Horus
for the Kingship

• Typhon [Seth] devises a plot against

Osiris. He tricks him into a coffin, nails it
shut, takes it out to the river, and lets it go
to the sea.
 The Wanderings of Isis
• When Isis hears of what Seth has done, she cuts off a
lock of hair and puts on a mourning garment.
• Isis learns that Osiris loved and was intimate with her
sister while mistaking her for herself. She finds the child
of this union with the help of dogs, and it becomes her
guard and attendant, called Anubis.
• As a result of this, Isis learns that Osiris’ chest was cast
up by the sea in the land of Byblos and that the surf
brought it gently to rest in a heath-tree.
• Later (p. 414) we are told that Isis has sex with Osiris
after his death, and from this union bears Harpocrates,
prematurely delivered and weak in his lower limbs.
 Isis Finds the Coffin of Osiris
• Through the divine breath of rumor, Isis hears of Osiris’ fate and
comes to Byblos, where she sits down near a fountain, dejected and
tearful.
• Isis becomes friendly with the queen of Byblos and is made the
nurse of her child.
• In the night she burns the mortal parts of the child’s body.
• The queen, who has been watching her, shrieks when she sees her
child on fire, and so deprives it of immortality.
• The goddess then reveals herself and demands the pillar under the
roof. She then covers it with linen and pours sweet oil on it, after
which she gives it into the keeping of the king and queen. To this
day the people of Byblos venerate the wood, which is in the temple
of Isis.
 Isis Finds the Coffin of Osiris, 2
• The goddess then falls upon the coffin, and placing it in a boat, she
sets sail. As soon as she happens on a deserted spot, she opens
the chest and, pressing her face to that of Osiris, she embraces him
and begins to cry.
• Having journeyed to her son Horus, who was being brought up in
Buto, Isis puts the box aside, and Typhon, when he was hunting by
night in the moonlight, comes upon it. He recognizes the body, cuts
it into fourteen parts, and scatters them.
• When she hears of this, Isis searches for them in a papyrus boat,
sailing through the marshes. As she comes upon each part, she
holds a burial ceremony.
• The only part of Osiris that Isis does not find is his male member. In
its place Isis fashions a likeness of it and consecrates the phallus, in
honor of which the Egyptians even today hold a festival.
 Osiris Acknowledges Horus
• Osiris comes to test Horus (p. 414), asking him:
– What does he consider the finest action? Horus
responds, “To succor one’s father and mother when
they have suffered wrong.”
– What does he consider the most useful animal for
battle? Horus replies, “The horse.”
– Why did he not name the lion? Horus answers that
the lion is helpful, but the horse routs the fugitive and
so destroys his forces completely.
• Osiris is pleased and feels that Horus has
adequately prepared himself for battle.
 Apuleius, The Golden Ass
• The worship of Isis persisted in the Roman Empire at least until 394
C.E. As we have already seen, Isis comes to be identified with a
variety of other goddesses from throughout the Roman Empire.
• Apuleius lived from 125 to ca.170 C.E. The protagonist of the story,
Lucius, is accidentally turned into an ass by dabbling in ill-
understood magic, and has a wide range of adventures while in that
form.
• At the end of the novel, he sees a vision of Isis, who calls upon him
to become her follower, and the next day Lucius regains his human
form upon seeing a procession of Isis, which is described in detail,
and munching on a garland of roses, which were sacred to the
goddess.
• The ritual that Lucius happens upon is the one called the
ploiaphesia, a springtime blessing of ships that celebrated the
opening of the year’s navigation after the dangers of winter storms
were past.
 A Ritual of Isis
• Soldier, woman, magistrate, Ganymede, Pegasus, Bellerophon –
Comic figures at the beginning of the procession poked fun at
persons of authority and even the gods themselves.
• Women in white scattering flowers, polished mirrors, ivory combs –
These elements prepared the way for the goddess.
• Lanterns, torches, wax tapers, every other kind of illumination –
These were the symbols of Isis’ birth from Geb and Nut.
• Initiates, priests – These were the earthly devotees of the mystery
religion associated with Isis.
• The gods themselves – Now we see a more serious rendition of
divinity than the figures at the beginning of the procession.
• The Secret Things, the Supreme Deity, which showed no likeness to
any bird or beast (wild or tame) or even to man – These seem to
have been objects associated with the mysteries of Isis.