A very warm, peaceful, sacred, and Happy Winter Solstice to you all.
Isis the Mother and Her Holy Child Horus
This is most definitely not the time of the ancient Egyptian end-of-the-year epigomenal days. However, from winter solstice to the New Year are my epigomenal days—not only because these are the end-of-year days of our modern calendar, but also because I am on much-needed vacation from now until the beginning of next year.
That being the case, let’s talk a bit about the epigomenal days, including some ways to celebrate the end of the year with Isis.
Since today is the first day after solstice, you might invoke Isis the Mother and celebrate the birth of Her Holy Child Horus. If you missed the post about Horus’ winter solstice birth from a couple weeks ago, you can read all about that here. Since both Isis and Horus are especially known as protective Deities, you could ask Their protection for yourself and your loved ones in the coming year.
The ancient Egyptian epigomenal days were the five days before the late summer rising of the Star of Isis, Sopdet (Sothis in Greek, Sirius in Latin). With the rising of Her Star, the New Year began. The Egyptian year had only 360 days, but the solar year has 365+. So the Egyptians made up the difference by adding five epigomenal—that is, “inserted into the calendar”—days at the end of the year prior to the rising of Sopdet and the start of the new year.
The beautiful Star of Isis, Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek) is directly overhead at the New Year
Without the protection of the confines of the calendar, the Egyptian epigomenal days were considered a dangerous time. People wore additional amulets and priests might perform the ritual of “Pacifying Sakhmet,” since the fierce Goddess seems to have been particularly antagonistic towards humankind at the end of the year. (Another good reason to ask Isis and Horus for protection now.)
Epigomenal days as birthdays of the Deities
As early as the Middle Kingdom (2050-1650 BCE), these five extra days were also associated with the births of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Festivals of these Deities were duly celebrated during the epigomenal days. The time between the winter solstice and our new year is longer than the Egyptian period, but if you’d like to celebrate the birthdays of the Deities, one every other day rather than one per day would work out pretty well.
An ancient Egyptian calendar from the temple of Karnak
On the other hand, if you are more Isis-centric in your worship, you could consider the entire period as holy days of the Goddess. We can look to some ancient calendrical inscriptions for the day of Isis’ birthday to give us some clues about options for honoring Her at this time.
In a papyrus known as Leyden I, She is called “The Great One, Daughter of Nuet.” She is said to be “in Chemmis,” that is, in a particular city in the delta, and She is invoked particularly for protection. In another papyrus, Leyden II, the fourth day is said to be named “the pure one who is in his field.” The masculine pronoun would seem to exclude Isis. It could allude to Osiris or it could be a scribal error. If it should have been the Pure One Who is in Her Field, it would make a good deal of sense in connection with Isis since Isis was associated with the pure new plants that would soon be coming forth from the Egyptian fields with the New Year. In two calendars known as the Cairo calendars, the fourth epigomenal day is said to be named, “the one who makes terror.” Isis is also called the Goddess Who Guides the 3kt-Eye, Daughter of Nuet, Lady of Chemmis. Another calendar notes the fourth day is called, “the child who is in his nest; the Birth of Isis.” (I wonder whether this child is Horus or Isis Herself since the day is Her birthday?) There is some evidence that Isis’ temple at Philae may have been dedicated to Her on the 4th epigomenal day, as a birthday present. At Hathor’s temple of Denderah, which also had a smaller Temple of Isis, there are numerous references to Isis’ connection with the New Year and the renewal it brings. Osiris’ own birthday in this same period only reinforces the connection with rebirth and renewal. For more on Isis and a lamp festival on Her birthday, check out this post.
Thoth purifying the pharaoh from Isis’ temple at Philae
So what can we do with all this? What hits me most strongly is, of course, the rebirth and renewal aspect—which is entirely in harmony with our modern New Year celebrations. We begin again. We start over. We rededicate ourselves. We make resolutions to do things better. Purification is often associated with such reboots and so the epigomenal days would be a perfect time for purification. We might purify ourselves via bathing, fasting, purchasing new clothing, or purify our sacred spaces by cleaning and straightening up our shrines, all the while invoking Isis by the epithets from the calendars.
If you’re looking for a more formal rite, Isis Magic includes one called The Rite of Loosing the Eyes, which involves purification and an oracle for the New Year delivered by Isis and Nephthys (pg. 353 of the new edition).
Epigomenal days as the time of the Star of Isis
During our winter epigomenal days, we don’t witness the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis as the ancient Egyptians did during their epigomenal days. However, there is something very special that happens at this time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere: Sirius reaches its highest point in the night sky. The beautiful, glittering star of Isis reaches midheaven, directly above us, on January first and can be seen shimmering in that position for about the first week of January. Just as the heliacal rising of Sirius heralded the ancient Egyptian New Year, so the midheaven arrival of Sirius can serve as a marker for our modern New Year’s celebration. You’ll find a small rite for that purpose here. There is also a ritual for the Prophet/ess of Isis in Isis Magic called Causing Sothis to Rise (pg. 513) in the Temple, in which the Prophet/ess blesses the elements through the power of Sothis.
An illustration of the glittering Star of Isis over the pyramids
Personally, I look forward to doing many of these rites during my own epigomenal days. May your epigomenal days be just as blessed.
When the Christian Empire forcibly forbade the worship of the Pagan Deities, the Goddesses and Gods did not die. But They did go underground.
An illustration of a carving depicting the Egyptian city of Alexandria, personified as Isis; from the Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Note Her Isis knot.
One place They hid was euhemerism, which is the idea that the Deities are merely historical mortals who, because of their special talents or moral worth, eventually came to be worshipped as Goddesses and Gods as Their stories became exaggerated over time. The concept is named after Euhemerus, a 3rd century BCE Greek mythographer. It wasn’t his original concept, but it is his name that became associated with it and here we are.
Euhemerism turned out to be not such an awesome idea because emerging Christianity could use it to ridicule Pagans for worshipping mere human beings. On the other hand, it did preserve the stories of the Goddesses and Gods far into the West’s Christian-ruled centuries. Since these stories were not really about Deities, you see, the stories could be told without being a threat to Christianity.
Churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages were often decorated equally with images of Pagan Deities and Biblical characters. The sibyls of the Pagans and the prophets of the Bible were both considered people of wisdom from whom the churchgoer could learn. And while the Church wasn’t completely comfortable with this arrangement (and sometimes even railed against it) still the practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
In these stories, Isis is often seen as a culture-bearer and philosopher. In 1508, John Trithemius, the Abbot of Spanheim, lists Isis among the “men” who devoted themselves to the study of wisdom.
Verily in these times, as it evidently appears from the Histories of the Ancients, men more earnestly applied themselves to the study of wisdom, amongst whom the last learned and most eminent men, were Mercurius, Bacchus, Omogyius, Isis, Ianachus, Argus, Apollo, Cecrops, and many more, who by their admirable inventions, both profited the world then, and posterity since. (John Trithemius, De Septem Secundeis, A0-6)
Christine de Pisan
Allegory was another refuge of the Pagan Deities. Allegory interprets the myths or attributes of the Pagan Deities as moral tales or philosophical concepts. Again, it was a method created by Pagans themselves to find additional meaning in their myths. The Neoplatonists of the late Pagan period used allegory as a method to refute the arguments of Christians who claimed moral superiority for their religion. Pagans could point to allegorical interpretations of the myths to show how Pagan myths taught honor, chastity, fidelity, and other virtues. Eventually, the myths of the Pagan Deities came to be used at least as often as Biblical stories to teach “Christian” values.
One of the writers who learned from the story of Isis was Christine de Pisan (1364—1430 CE). De Pisan was born in Venice, but spent her life in France. Writing in the Late Middle Ages, de Pisan was an early feminist (some say the first feminist, some prefer proto-feminist); her work challenged misogyny and the gender stereotypes of her day.
Ysys (Isis) descends from heaven to graft new branches on old trees. The Goddess cultivates trees and fields just as the knight should cultivate virtues in himself.
In a work called the Epistle of Orthea to Hector, de Pisan writes as the Goddess Orthea, a Goddess she created to represent the “Wisdom of Women,” to the young Trojan Hector, who represented the ideal knight. The Epistle consists of 100 stories meant to teach values to the young. All the stories are derived from Pagan texts from authors like Homer and Ovid. In one, de Pisan describes Isis (Ysys) as a planter and cultivator.
An illustration accompanying the text shows Isis grafting new branches on old trees. The knight is advised to follow the example of the Goddess and plant virtues in himself. The planting of these virtues is to be understood as similar to the conception of Jesus by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Whose “great bounties may be neither imagined nor said.” As was so frequently the case, here Isis is assimilated with Mary.
While we cannot claim that the worship of our Lady Isis is an uninterrupted tradition, I think we can rightfully claim that Isis never left human awareness. From the time when Her worship was forbidden to modern times when so many have returned to be sheltered in Her loving wings, Isis continued to live in myth, in allegory, in stories, in poems by first-feminist poets, in wisdom teachings, in alchemy, and in so many of the flowing streams of the Western Esoteric Tradition.
Isis is alive. The Goddess is alive. And yes, She always has been.
Have you ever had to answer questions explaining all those images on your altar to some members of the major monotheisms? You know. The idolatry question.
My sacred image-filled Isis shrine. We sacrificed a double closet to give Her this space.
If you’ve ever found yourself in that situation, you probably ended up saying sometime like, “I don’t worship the statue. I worship the Deity represented by the statue.” It seems so simple and obvious. And it is. For the most part.
But when it comes to ancient Egyptian tradition, things do get a bit more interesting.
As you probably already know, images were extremely important in Egyptian tradition. Images, and most especially the sacred images of the Deities, could become vessels for the indwelling of the Divine presence. Once the proper rites were performed, the Deity was, in some sense, alive within the image and became a fit representation of that Deity to the worshipper.
My other enlivened Isis image; She was one of my first
The sacred image provided a way for the Deity to be physically present in the material world. Jeremy Nadler, one of my favorite writers on the subject, says in his Temple of the Cosmos, “The gods could not be distinguished from their statues or images, and to have done so would have been as false to the ancients as it would be questionable for us moderns to distinguish between a person and his or her body.”
And the Egyptians weren’t the only ones. In Apuleius’ tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, he tells us that he repeatedly stood before the temple statue of the Goddess and worshipped Isis in Her image. “I was wrapt in my gaze on the image of the Goddess,” he writes. Later in the story, he describes a deeply emotional experience he has had while praying before the statue. “I laid myself down at last in obeisance before the Goddess and for a long time wiped Her feet with my face. Then, with welling tears, breaking my speech with frequent sobs and swallowing my words, I addressed Her.” In describing an earlier procession of the Goddess, Lucius mentions the images carried by special bearers and which he calls “breathing effigies.” Very much in the Egyptian tradition.
The idea that a Divine spark can become attracted to and activated in a special image passed into Renaissance Europe via the Hermetic tradition; a tradition deeply rooted in Egyptian as well as Greek philosophy. The Qabalistic tradition has handed down the idea of the golem, a being made from clay that the Rabbis activated by prayer and ritual. In alchemy, the homunculus, or “little man,” is a similar concept. The idea that certain images can be enlivened or charged by the Divine comes into modern magical religions as talismanic magic in which special symbols and images (talismans) can be consecrated with Divine energy. The word talisman comes from the Greek for a perfect or completed object; thus it would be quite reasonable to think of your sacred images as talismans.
Another favorite, but this one hasn’t been enlivened. Yet, anyway.
Some cultures believe that God, the Deities, or the Divine Spirit is contained within all things. These animistic, pantheistic, or panentheistic cultures understand the world as brilliantly alive and sacred. On this subject, the Greek philosopher Plotinus wrote, “there is nothing which is without a share of soul.” Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist philosopher, joined him in finding the world alive, ensouled, and sacred declaring, “as to the first principle, that the gods dwell only in heaven, it is not true. Everything is full of them.” Many indigenous cultures, too, share this view, as do many modern Neo-Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, Goddess devotees, and more. If we accept this, then even the materials with which our sacred images are constructed contain a bit of the Divine within. And they will only be more powerful when specifically activated to receive an influx of the Divine.
The large image of Isis that sits upon my altar as well as the small golden one above have both been enlivened through ritual and invocation. (Isis Magic includes a ritual for enlivening your own sacred image in the Magician chapter, if you are so inclined.) As living images they serve as a focus for my meditation and prayer. I can feel Her in the image, especially if I have been spending a lot of time in the shrine with Her. I honor that spark from the heart of the Goddess that resides within this sacred image—as within All Things. The image is a focus for prayers and a conduit for the blessing of the Goddess. The spark within it lights the fire of love for the Great Goddess Isis—Whose image is at once everywhere and nowhere.
The image to the left is the standard form of the amulet known as the tyet or Knot of Isis. It is an open loop of material, tied with a sash that hangs down below the loop on two sides. The tyet looks similar to the ankh, the hieroglyph for “life” except that its elongated crossbar is folded down. In fact, the tyet may be related to the ankh, for the tyet sign is often translated as “life” or “welfare.”
The origins of the amulet are unknown. As a knot, however, its symbolism in Egyptian thought can give us some clues. A knot involves the idea of binding and releasing, the joining of opposites, and, since a knot secures things, protection. Knot magic was well known in Egypt from an early period; an inscription in one of the pyramids states, “Isis and Nephthys work magic on Thee [Osiris] with knotted cords.” In addition to the formula above, the Book of Coming Forth by Day gives several other examples of the magical power of the knot.
Osiris as the Djed Pillar with Isis and Nephthys beside Him as two Tyet Knots
In this one, knots are tied around the deceased to help her come into the presence of the Deities: “The four knots are tied about me by the guardian of the sky [. . .] the knot was tied about me by Nut, when I first saw Maat, when the gods and the sacred images had not yet been born. I am heaven born, I am in the presence of the Great Gods.”
In addition to these four knots, other texts mention seven knots, or tesut, that were tied about the deceased to protect them.
The Knot of Isis is frequently paired with the Pillar of Osiris as in this modern amulet.
The tyet first appears in Egyptian iconography in the third dynasty. It was frequently used in association with the djed pillar of Osiris and so became almost exclusively associated with Isis. Used together, the two symbols could refer to the power of the Goddess and God to engender Life. Because of this, the symbols may also be seen as sexual symbols; the pillar referring to the phallus of the God and the knot to the vulva and womb of the Goddess.
It may have been the combination of the tyet’s connection with life and its association with Isis’ sexuality that led to it being called the Blood of Isis and so being made of red jasper, carnelian, or even red glass. It might represent the red lifeblood a mother sheds while giving birth.
The Knot of Isis, May She protect!
On the other hand, it might represent menstrual blood. Some say the amulet is shaped like the cloth worn by women during menstruation. Others have interpreted it as a representation of a ritual tampon that could be inserted in the vagina to prevent miscarriage. (Read more about that here. ) In addition to blood, the amulet’s red color could represent fire and the Sun—and the living, regenerative properties of Isis the Flame, the Radiant Solar Goddess and Lady of Rebirth.
A Roman-era version of the Knot of Isis worn by the Goddess or Her priestess
In the later Hellenistic and Roman periods, the Knot of Isis becomes familiar as a knot tied into the clothing of the Goddess and Her priestesses and devotees.
The image to the right is a Roman-era Isis and shows the usual way we tend to see the Knot of Isis tied into clothing during the Greco-Roman period.
The Knot of Isis ensemble consisted of two pieces: an under-robe, long or short-sleeved, and an over-mantle that was draped around the body and tied together with a large knot—the Isis Knot—between the breasts. The mantle is often fringed. The mantle shown here has just a little fringe, which you can see a little bit where the ends of the knot hang loose.
The type of New Kingdom woman’s dress that became the model for the Knot of Isis ritual clothing
In Egypt, however, the draped mantle was not quite the specialized mode of dress it became in the Greco-Roman world. In fact, scholars believe that the later Knot of Isis outfit derived from the type of Egyptian dress worn by many queens and noblewomen beginning in the New Kingdom (1570-1085 BCE). (Goddesses, on the other hand, are almost always shown wearing the old-fashioned sheath dress, the kalasiris, which is tight-fitting and held up by two wide straps that, sort of, cover the breasts.)
New Kingdom fashion became more sumptuous. Women’s clothing gained drapery and folds, but because it was often made of very sheer material, you could still appreciate the curves of the wearer’s body beneath. (Egyptian weavers were famed for their ability to create exquisitely fine linen. It was said that it was so fine that it could easily be pulled through a finger ring.)
The New Kingdom dress has material draped over both arms and knotted between the breasts. What we don’t see here is the heavy draping under the breasts that became characteristic of the Knot of Isis costume in later periods. Our beautiful New Kingdom lady has no need of an under-robe. Yet Isis’ Greek and Roman devotees, in their more modest—or perhaps, restrictive—cultures, preferred an undergarment of some kind, usually a simple robe like a Greek chiton.
As time passed and Egypt came under Greek and then Roman rule, Egyptian women would opt for an undergarment as well, either a slim, Egyptian kalasiris or a Greek chiton. There are some Egyptian images in which we can see the undergarment through the diaphanous draped mantle. In the Greek and Roman worlds, with the under-robe standard, the mantle could become shorter and more decorative. The fringe becomes more common and the draping, especially beneath the breasts, becomes more pronounced.
Arsinoe II with Isis knot dress and missing her headdress
It appears to have been the Ptolemaic queens—who were often identified with Isis and Hathor/Aphrodite—who eventually turned the royal knotted outfit into an attribute of Isis specifically. The earliest known instance is Arsinoe II (born 316 BCE) on a monument known as the Pithom stele. There Arsinoe wears the knotted costume and Goddess headdress and is called “the image of Isis and Hathor.”
Arsinoe III is also shown wearing the knotted garment and headdress (see below) and she, too, is sometimes assimilated with Isis, for example, in inscriptions that blessed the queen as “Arsinoe Philadelphus Isis.”
By the time of Kleopatra III, Isis had gained more prominence and the queen became more and more associated with Her. When Kleopatra III gave birth to a son, she was hailed as “Isis, Mother of the God.” What’s more, because the child had the same birthday as the Apis bull, Kleopatra III also became the “Isis cow,” the Mother of Apis. It is more than likely that Kleopatra III encouraged these types of identifications as she was in an intense rivalry with her mother, Kleopatra II, to whom Ptolemy VIII was still married when he also married his niece, Kleopatra III. Talk about complicated relationships. Ptolemies. Sheesh.
Arsinoe II with knotted garment
It is, as yet, unknown exactly when Isis Herself was first represented wearing the characteristic knot. What seems likely is that, as the Isis-identified queens were more and more often shown wearing the knotted garment, artists naturally took up that same style when creating images of the Goddess Herself. Queens have always been fashion setters.
Priestesses and devotees of the Goddess might then choose to imitate the dress of Isis as they saw it being depicted in the art and temples around them.
Arsinoe III with knot and headdress
To recap: the knotted garment was originally an Egyptian fashion, especially seen on royal and noble women. The Ptolemaic queens, who were Greek but trying to be more Egyptian, adopted the knotted garment as an outfit that Egyptian royals wore. As part of “becoming Egyptian” the Ptolemies promoted the cult of Isis, Osiris/Sarapis, and Horus/Harpokarates. Egyptian tradition already associated the pharaoh with Horus, the son of Isis. To emphasize their Egyptian-ness, the Ptolemaic queens began to associate themselves with Isis and with Hathor. By the end of the dynasty, Isis was the more prominent Goddess and the queens, wearing their Egyptian knotted outfits, were strongly identified with Isis.
What’s more, since there was already a famous knot associated with Isis, the tyet, it was easy to connect the knotted garment with the Goddess of the sacred knot, the Knot of Isis.
At the time when the Ptolemaic queens were identifying themselves with Isis, the Goddess’ worship was being widely disseminated outside of Egypt. Non-Egyptian artists looked to Egypt for the way to portray the Goddess. Naturally, they looked to the queens. They then used the knotted garment, along with other Egyptian symbols, such as the lotus and the crocodile, to indicate that the sacred image they were creating was indeed intended to be Isis Herself.
An incredibly sensual image of a Ptolemaic queen with the knot between her breasts
So that’s the connection between the ancient amulet known as the Knot of Isis and the characteristic knotted garment of the Goddess in the Greco-Roman period. Yet we do well to remember that the Knot of Isis, first and foremost, has to do with Isis’ power as Goddess of Magic; Isis works heka with knots. For those of us who worship Her today, we may see the Isis Knot not only as a visual emblem indicating the Goddess, but also as a symbol of Her magical power to surround, unite, and protect.
“The Ethiopians, Africans, and Egyptians know Me by My true name of Queen Isis.”
In Apuleius’ story about Lucius’ initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, the Goddess Herself appears in answer to his desperate prayers and gives an aretalogy describing Her powers and names.
In it, She says,
“But the Ethiopians who are illuminated by the first rays of the Sun God as He is born every day, together with the Africans and the Egyptians who excel through having the original doctrine, honor Me with My distinctive rites and give Me My true name of Queen Isis.” (Apuleius, Metamorphoses Book XI, 5; capitalization mine)
By Apuleius’ time, Isis was deeply into Her Myrionymous phase as Lady of the Ten Thousand Names. Yet even then, he knows that the “Ethiopians, Africans, and Egyptians” are the ones who best know Her proper rites and Her true name of Isis. Isis has a deep and abiding relationship with those who know Her in this ancient and authentic way.
So for today’s post, I’d like to tell you something about Isis as She was known in the lands to the south of ancient Egypt, often known as Nubia. The name Nubia comes from an Egyptian term for “gold,” nub. Thus Nubia is the Gold Land. Nubia is (roughly) the ancient kingdom of Kush, with its famous capital city of Meroe, while Ethiopia, to the south and east of Nubia, may be what the Egyptians referred to as the Land of Punt. Today, Nubia is part of southern Egypt and Sudan and some of the people there still refer to themselves as Nubians. You may also recall that in the last days of Philae, it was Nubian peoples such as the Blemmyes and Nobade who continued Isis’ worship at Philae even after the temple was officially closed. In Classical Greece, Kush was called Ethiopia, so in many texts any distinction between Nubians and Ethiopians is unclear. In this post, I’ll use Nubia and Nubian as general terms for the land and peoples to the immediate south of ancient Egypt.
The coffin lid of 25th dynasty Theban Priest, Djeddjehutyiuefankh
Ancient Egypt and Nubia have a complex and interweaving history, at various times dominating and influencing each other. (Egypt’s 25th dynasty was a Nubian one.) During all this co-mingling, some Egyptian Deities came to Nubia, Isis among them. Probably established in Nubia around 1950 BCE (when Egypt was dominant and Nubian royalty adopted much Egyptian custom), Isis has long been a Nubian Goddess.
Isis was known throughout Nubia as The Great Lady of Nubia. In the British Museum, there is an Egyptian healing text in which Isis specifically says of Herself, “I am the Nubian and I have descended from heaven.” The formula is for the cure of poisoning. In the formula, Nubian Isis speaks a spell consisting of a long list of Deities Who come to bring healing to the sufferer. As the Nubian Who descends from heaven, She comes bringing with Her the rich blackness of the heavens, of fertility, and of healing magic. Lana Troy, in Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth & History, suggests that Isis’ Nubian blackness counteracts the painful redness of the poison.
Diodorus Siculus preserves a Nubian tradition that the Egyptians were actually colonists sent out by Nubia (he says Ethiopia) under the leadership of Osiris. According to this tradition, what was then Egypt was, at the beginning of the world, only sea. It was the silt flowing north down the Nile that formed the land of Egypt. The tradition also says that Egyptian customs and writing are Nubian as well. (Diodorus Siculus, Book 3, section 3) Indeed, archeological investigations reveal this area as one of the world’s oldest civilizations, alongside Mesopotamia and Egypt. In Meroe, they used both hieroglyphs and Meroitic writing, which has been partially decoded.
The Kandake, Queen Amanitore
We find evidence of Isis throughout Nubia, but most strongly in the great city of Meroe and in Wad ben Naqa. Both are cities on the Nile; Wad ben Naqa is about 70 kilometers upstream from Meroe. We also find a strong presence of Nubians at Isis’ great temple at Philae, which became a place of pilgrimage for Nubians during the 25th dynasty when Nubians ruled in Egypt.
From Wad ben Naqa we have a pedestal of King Natakamani and Queen Amanitore that has both Meroitic script and hieroglyphs and which has helped enable decipherment of Merotic so far. The inscription addresses Isis:
“Stay, stay on the great throne, Isis, Mistress of the Underworld, like the living sun-disk in the horizon, in that You let your son Natakamani remain on his throne. Stay, stay on the great throne, Isis, Mistress of the Underworld, as does the moon that grows like an egg in traversing heaven. May it give life to Your daughter, Amanitore.” (My capitalization again.)
It was said that Nubian kings ruled with the Queen Mother, called the Kandake, so Amanitore may have been Natakamani’s mother rather than his wife.
Isis was important especially in Nubian funerary customs and in the kingship. Kings are frequently said to be the Son of Isis or Beloved of Isis. Some inscriptions indicate that it was Isis Who watched over the post mortum transformations of the deceased and eventually gave the Ka (Kha in Meroitic) permission to leave the tomb and go to the Otherworld. Isis was paired with Osiris in relation to funerary customs, in which Osiris served an Anubis-like function as Otherworld guide.
A Nubian aegis of Isis, from about 300 BCE
This inscription on a statue now in the Berlin Museum comes from the Nubian city of Napata and gives us some ideas about the powers of Nubian Isis. (Please note that I have removed the parentheses that the translator inserted to indicate implied words to make it easier to read):
“Give noble renewal, O Isis, to the new vivification. Give renewal, give its erection. Reflect on the patron [that is, the person who dedicated the statue] and guide good prosperity on the good path indeed. Desire patron [I presume this means the patron desires] the bestowal of a rebirth to resound in Henel. Goodness comes into being as an Object of Respect for the patron. Give existence to the new vivification. Go now and give it leave. Fashion wonderment and order, O Isis, you will commence to make wonderment in abundance. The good Supporter even goes to wipe out much non-existence. The hero to behold all. Act now to bear approbation. You give guidance and nourishment. This is done by transmigration; give its existence. The disciple indeed to reflect on Isis the good, she puts on you guidance.
Isis leads. She commences to arrange your transmigration. Arrange now the gifts. The patron of Isis is to be exalted, like new. Spread the bequeathal of the hero in a pile. Rise to arrange and guide us to honor, O Isis. Much praise goes forth, Isis is to also bring authorization for the new vivification. The new vivification to give birth to the Kha anew in truth and dignity. The patron has permission to realize it. Isis is to make it happen…”
In addition to worshipping the Goddess in their own land, Nubians travelled to Philae to honor Isis at Her great temple there as well. We know them from the “adoration graffiti” or proskynema they left at the temple and the surrounding area. Philae is at what was the borderland between Egypt and Nubia. Interestingly, the temple faces south, towards Nubia, which is not the usual temple orientation in Egypt. Excavations have found Nubian-like pottery at Philae, predating the temple there. The earliest certain evidence of Nubians at Philae is from about 690 BCE, during the 25th dynasty.
The Nubians who visited Philae were priests and “agents” of Isis and seemed to have timed their visits to coincide with the Festival of Osiris during Khoiak, which marked His death and renewal as well as the recession of the Nile flood and the time of sowing crops, and the Festival of Entry. They often brought donations of gold and other valuables for the temple there. One interesting inscription says that the envoy was to give ten talents of gold to the Philae priests and their daughters. I wonder if this meant that the daughters were all serving as priestesses of Isis?
Merotic script and Egyptian equivalent
The Festival of Entry was the time when Isis journeyed to the nearby island of Biga with its Tomb of Osiris to pour milk libations for Him. During this time, the statue of Isis would be taken to Biga to preside over three ten-day Egyptian weeks of offerings. (A weekly version of this Festival took place at Philae, too, but apparently the big one was held once a year and that’s the one attended by the Nubians.)
A good deal of the Nubian graffiti at Philae attests to a personal relationship with Isis as a Goddess Who is disposed to helping the worshipper and Who “hears the petitions of those who are far off.”
The Great Lady of Nubia brings Her healing from heaven, She watches over the transformations of the deceased and brings new vivification, new life, and—as always—She welcomes a deeply personal relationship with Her devotees.
Ahhh. There is absolutely nothing like the smell of fresh bread, hot from the oven. Add butter and I’m in heaven.
Yet with so many of us on gluten-free diets because of gluten intolerance or celiac disease—and with some arguing that eating grain is literally killing us even if we’re not gluten-intolerant or celiac sufferers—well it seems that bread has been both refused and abused of late.
And so today I write in defense of bread—as a worthy offering to Isis and Her Divine family and as a powerful symbol of transformation.
An offering table with the round loaves of bread and pitchers of wine already and eternally upon it
Indeed, the offering tables of ancient Egypt fairly groaned beneath the weight of loaves of offered bread. In tomb paintings you can see them, baked into neat, conical or oval shapes and piled high upon the altars. “Thousands of loaves” were promised to Deities and deceased pharaohs. Excavations have shown that actual loaves of bread were among the grave goods of kings and commoners alike. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased declares he will live on the bread of the Goddesses and Gods.
As in so many places in the world, bread in ancient Egypt was a basic, even archetypal, food and the grain from which it was made, an essential, as well as symbolic, food crop. To the ancient Egyptians, a loaf of bread came to symbolize all types of food offerings and all good things.
Lady and Lord of Green Crops
Both Isis and Osiris are strongly connected with bread and the grain from which it is made. A number of Isis’ epithets attest to this. She is the Lady of Bread and Beer, Lady of Green Crops, Goddess of the Fertility of the Field, and the Lady of Abundance. (And by “bread and beer” the Egyptians meant more than just a sandwich wrapper and a drink. The phrase meant every good thing; Egyptians would even greet each other by saying, “bread and beer,” thus wishing each other prosperity.)
I live and grow as Grain…
For Osiris’ part, like so many Gods, He is identified with the cycle of the living and dying grain. The Coffin Texts connect Osiris and grain with immortality: “I am Osiris . . . I live and grow as Neper [“Corn” or “Grain”], whom the august gods bring forth that I may cover Geb [the earth], whether I be alive or dead. I am barley, I am not destroyed.” The texts also tell us that the deceased, identified with Osiris as the Divine grain, nourishes the common people, makes the Gods Divine, and “spiritualizes” the spirits. Thus bread and grain are more than just bodily sustenance; they are spiritual sustenance as well.
Emmer wheat, the most common type from which the ancient Egyptians made bread
Temple walls show grain growing out of the body of the dead Osiris while His soul hovers above the stalks. But it is not enough that the grain sprouts and grows. It must also be transformed so that Osiris Himself may also be transformed. And, as in the main Isis and Osiris myth, the Goddess is the one Who transforms the God. In the myth, She does this by reassembling His body and fanning life into Him with Her wings. Using the grain metaphor, Isis becomes the Divine Baker Who transforms the raw grain into the risen and nourishing bread. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased person asks for a funeral meal of “the cake that Isis baked in the presence of the Great God.”
As a symbol of transformation and ongoing life, grain has magical properties. Some of the funerary texts have the deceased rubbing her body with barley and emmer wheat in order to partake of these magically transforming properties.
A “corn Osiris” … perhaps molded like the larger Divine Bread of Mendes?
In several temples where important festivals of Osiris were held, the priests made a complex form of bread, called Divine Bread, that was molded in the shape of Osiris. (In fact, the ancient Egyptians were quite adept at using molds to bake bread in a variety of shapes and forms.) The Osirian Divine Bread was made from grain and a special paste consisting of ingredients such as Nile mud, dates, frankincense, fresh myrrh, 12 spices with magical properties, 24 precious gems, and water.
At Denderah, this Divine Bread was modeled into the shapes of the pieces of the body of Osiris and sent to the various cities in which Isis was said to have enshrined them.
At Mendes (which is where, we must note, the phallus of Osiris was enshrined), a sacred marriage was part of the Osirian celebrations. It took place between the Goddess Shontet, a form of Isis, and Osiris as the grain. In the Goddess’ holy of holies, Her sacred statue was unclothed and grain was strewn on a special bed before Her. After allowing some time for the Goddess and God to unite, the grain was gathered up, then wrapped in cloth, watered, and used to model a full-body figure of Osiris Khenti-Amenti (“Osiris, Chief of the West,” that is, the Land of the Dead). Finally, Osiris the Divine Bread was buried with full ceremony, including a priestess who took the role of Isis to mourn Him and work the transforming magic of the Goddess.
Gathering lotuses for the lotus bread
Several ancient writers describe an entirely different type of bread also associated with Isis. It is lotus bread. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians who lived in the Delta gathered the lotuses that grow profusely there. They dried the centers containing the seeds then pounded them into flour that was made into bread. Lotus-seed bread was made from both the white and the blue water lilies. The lily rhizomes were also used; they were dried, then ground into flour for bread making—though the rhizome version was likely to have been less palatable than the seed bread. In Diodorus’ account of Egyptian prehistory, he mentions that lotus bread was one of the Egyptian subsistence foods and that the “discovery of these is attributed by some to Isis.”
Isis is the Lady of Abundance Who gives us the bread of earthly life; and She is the Divine Baker Who makes the magical bread that gives us eternal life. She is the Goddess Who regenerates the Grain God as She guides the transformation of Her Beloved from the threshed grain into the ever-living Green God Osiris. She is the Goddess of Divine Bread Who feeds our bodies and souls and Her sacred bread is a pleasing offering to Isis, Goddess of Transformation.
The partially restored Temple of Hathor on neo-Philae (Agilkia) island
On the island of Philae, east of the Temple of Isis, stands a smaller temple to Hathor. The Hathor temple was restored, at least in part, in 2012 and reopened to the public. (Both the Isis and Hathor temples, as well as the other temples of ancient Philae are now on the Egyptian island of Agilkia, aka Agilika, where they were moved prior to the building of the Aswan Dam, which created Lake Nasser and flooded Philae.)
A lovely Hathor head, from a processional boat, now in the British Museum
Compared to the Temple of Isis on Agilkia, the Temple of Hathor is quite small. Reciprocally and interestingly, at Denderah, Hathor’s great Ptolemaic temple complex, there is a similar small Temple of Isis. Clearly, there is a relationship between these two Great Goddesses; so much so that it was required that each Goddess would have a smaller temple near the great temple of the other.
In fact, sometimes that relationship between Isis and Hathor is so close that it’s hard to tell Them apart. Beginning in the New Kingdom, we regularly see Isis wearing the Horns & Disk crown of a Cow Goddess that is emblematic of Hathor. Sometimes Isis also has a small throne on top of the Horns & Disk to indicate that She is indeed Isis rather than Hathor, sometimes She doesn’t. But guess what? Hathor sometimes borrows Isis’ headdress, too.
Again at Denderah, we find a carving of Hathor—and the hieroglyphs confirm that She IS Hathor—wearing the Horns & Disk with the throne on top. It’s a bit hard to make out in this photo, but you can see the throne sitting atop the disk in Hathor’s crown.
Both Isis and Hathor are associated with Horus, Isis as His mother, Hathor sometimes as mother, sometimes as lover. Both are Cow Goddesses and Goddesses of the Sycamore, though Hathor probably has the prior claim on both these symbols. Both are Eyes of the Divine and holy Uraeus Serpents, powerful, fiery, protective and vengeful Goddesses. Thus both can become Sekhmet, that most fierce and bloodthirsty of Goddesses. Both Isis and Hathor are Goddesses of the Otherworld, Goddesses of rebirth and resurrection, Whom the dead ones adore.
Looking just as these correspondences, Isis and Hathor seem interchangeable. Is it so?
I don’t think so. Instead, They are sister branches of the Divine Tree. They are ultimately united in the Tree’s trunk, yet there is a quite palpable difference in the energy feeling of the two Goddesses—at least out in the twigs and leaves of the Tree where we most often experience Them. As you know, I have an enduring dedication to Isis, but in another part of my spiritual life, I also have a strong connection to Hathor.
A beautiful Hathor from Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, by Steve F-E-Cameron (own work, public domain)
Hathor’s energy always has an underlying feeling of excitation, of arousal. It may be sexual, but it doesn’t have to be. Hathor imparts the excitement of living, and thus She is the Great Lady of Love, Joy, Drunkenness, and Dance. Her symbol par excellance is the sistrum, the sacred rattle that is shaken to stir things up. In Egyptian, to “play the sistrum” is iri sekhem, to “do power.” Hathor has something of the maenad in Her, if I may draw from a different cultural metaphor; She’s a bit more wild than Isis, more likely to roar or hiss or spit. O, but She will dance you to ecstasy; She will love you to ecstasy; She will sing you to ecstasy. Perhaps She will also put a bit of Divine terror into your belly while She’s doing it. But then She will turn Those Eyes upon you, those soft, bright, deep cow’s eyes, and She will soothe you, take you in, and make you understand that Love, only Love, is at the heart of the Divine reality.
Of course, Isis, too, inspires passion. She certainly inspires it in me. But that’s not the foundation of Her energy. At Isis’ heart is strength interwoven with the numinous power of magic. Hathor’s tingle is the excitement of life and love. Isis’ tingle is the excitement of magic, of heka. Hers is a deep, sometimes overwhelming, Intelligence; flowering in my mind like stars that blossom into the depths of Space and Time.
And yet, and yet. The Mystery of these two Great Goddesses is such that They can share many or even most of Their symbols, and have a share in each other’s power.
Note the knots in the straps of the Goddess’ garment as well as the little loop between Her breasts.
Feeling the need for some personal protection these days? I know I am. So this post offers a protection rite from Isis Magic that uses magical knots. The ritual can be used for any protective purpose.
But before we get to the ritual, let’s talk a bit more about Egyptian knot magic in general.
In ancient Egypt, magical knots were used to bind and release, join opposites, and— since a knot secures things—protect.
Knot magic was well known in Egypt from an early period; an inscription in one of the pyramids states that Isis and Nephthys work magic on Osiris “with knotted cords.”
The Book of Coming Forth by Day also gives several examples of the magical power of the knot. In one, knots are tied around the deceased to help her come into the presence of the Deities: “The four knots are tied about me by the guardian of the sky [. . .] the knot was tied about me by Nuet, when I first saw Ma’et, when the gods and the sacred images had not yet been born. I am heaven born, I am in the presence of the Great Gods.”
A knot amulet found at Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple
In addition to these four knots, another text talks about seven knots, or tesut, that were tied about the deceased to protect him or her.
The power of the magical knot is in its ability to both unite and “surround” things. The tied knot is a symbol of the coming together of two things in perfect wholeness, a condition that promotes a positive outcome.
Hapi using a knot to unite the Two Lands
A passage in the Coffin Texts says that when the hair of Isis is knotted to the hair of Nephthys, the Two River Banks (that is, the land of the living and the land of the dead) are united. Tying a knot could also refer to sexuality; the perfect coming together of two people in an act of creation. We still “tie the knot” when we get married.
Furthermore, because the two ends of the cord used in tying a magical knot symbolically go all the way around something, they “surrounded” that thing. Thus knot magic could thus be used to “surround” or “bind” an enemy—or even tie a curse to them.
In the ritual that follows, we are using the knots to surround with protection. We call upon Isis primarily, but also Nephthys, Neith, and Selket as the four Goddesses often found guarding the four corners of a shrine as well as the four Sons of Horus, Who in turn protect the canopic jars.
Isis protects!
The Rite of the Tet (the Knot of Isis)
About the Rite: In this rite, you will magically tie a protective knot around yourself (or around anything you wish to protect). The ritual draws upon sources in the Book of Coming Forth by Day and is, in part, adapted from an ancient rite for consecrating the Tet amulet.
Temple Arrangement: Altar at center; all tools on altar.
Ritual Tools: Nile water in Lotus Cup; petals from lotus, lily or rose flowers; Isis incense in censer; six pieces of fairly substantial red cord, each approximately one foot long (if you can’t find red cord that is thick enough, use white rope); Tet representation in any medium (if desired).
Opening
Purify and consecrate the temple and yourself according to the formulae of the House of Isis. Return to the altar, take up the lotus (lily or rose) petals and elevate them.
Priest/ess: O, you Souls of Life, Lotus Dwellers, Breathers, you of the Pure Air from the Wings of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within these petals. (Vibrating onto petals) ISET NEF!
Place some of the petals in the chalice.
Priest/ess: (Addressing petals) I know you, you shining flowers. Your name is “Life Is In It”. Your name is “Protection”. Your name is “Peace Bringer”.
Place the pieces of red cord upon the altar and anoint each of them with the Nile water with flower petals in it.
Priest/ess: (Touching each piece of cord) Isis protects!
Invocation of the Powers of Isis
Next, invoke the Goddess, raising your arms in Adoration.
Priest/ess: I call the power of my Mighty Mother Isis. I call Her strength to me. For I shall knot the cord, the Knot of Isis, and the power and peace of Isis.
O Isis, my Mother, I call You!
I call You with the breath of my body (breathing out).
I call You with the beat of my heart (touching chest).
I call You with the pulse of my life (touching wrists).
I call You with the words of my mouth (touching mouth).
I call You with the thoughts of my mind (touching forehead).
I call You Power. I call You Life. I call You Protection.
I call You, Isis!
Tying the Knots
Take up one of the pieces of red cord and move to the southeast corner of the temple. Holding the two ends of the cord in your hands, say:
Priest/ess: You have Your Blood, O Isis. You have Your Power, O Isis. You have Your Magic, O Isis. The Blood of Isis and the Strength of Isis and the Words of Power of Isis shall be mighty to (state what you wish to protect) against all that would cause harm.
With strength and intention, tie a knot in the cord and set it in the southeast corner of the temple.
Priest/ess: By the Power of Isis, I have knotted the cord.
Repeat this same procedure in the southwest, northwest, and northeast of the temple, above your head (leave the cord on the altar), and upon the ground (leave the cord at the foot of the altar).
Stand west of the altar, facing east. Make the Sign of the Wings of Isis.
Priest/ess: O Isis and all You mighty Goddesses of Protection, I call upon You to guard (state what you wish to protect) as You did guard Osiris Himself, as You did guard Horus the Child.
Isis, Mighty Magician; Nephthys, Lady of Life; Neith, Primal Mother; Selket, Powerful One—tie the Knot of Isis against all harm. Keep it away! Restrain it! Let it not come near! O, Isis and all You Goddesses of Protection, grant Your peace and protection.
If you wish to meditate or do other work, this is an excellent time to do so.
Closing
If this is a ritual for protection from some outside threat, leave the tied knots in the temple for as long as desired or needed and conclude the rite by making the Sign of the Wings of Isis at the altar and speaking the last line.
If this rite was worked simply to create peace for meditation, you may untie the knots when you are finished by simply going to each knot in the order you tied it and untying it.
Priest/ess: I have untied the knot. Be in peace, O You Blood and Power and Magic of Isis. Be in peace.
Take each piece of cord to the altar. [Skip to here if you are leaving the Knots tied.] At the altar, make Sign of the Wings of Isis.
Priest/ess: I thank You, Isis, in all Thy names of Protection. Hold me ever near You, bound by Your protective knots.
I missed posting the last couple of weeks. Life, the Universe, Everything…and the Fall EQ Festival. This year was dedicated to one of my two Beloved Ones, Dionysos, so I had to be there. It was a very fine Festival and Divine Madness was had by all. Anyway, in His honor, and Hers, I’d like to show you how, in antiquity, these two Divine Ones came together…as They do even today in my heart.
Now, at first glance, the Greek God of Ecstatic Intoxication & Wine doesn’t seem to have much to do with our Egyptian Lady of Magic & Power, Isis. After all, He’s the Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll God and She’s, well, She’s a bit more serious.
Ah, but wait. All is not as it seems. (All is almost never as it seems.) There are, in fact, quite solid connections between my two Divine Ones. In ancient times, you see, Dionysos was identified with Osiris, the Beloved of Isis. More on that in a moment.
First, I’d like to tell you how Dionysos came into my personal spiritual picture.
I had been vowed to Isis for many years, but long had felt the need to see the Divine with a masculine face as well as a feminine one. Naturally, the first place I looked was to Osiris. So I meditated with Him, I did ritual with Him, I thought and pondered on Him. I found Him wonderful and powerful and beautiful. But He didn’t grab my soul and shout, “Mine!” Or even whisper it. Or anything. The relationship just wasn’t…quite…right.
Fast forward a few years. A friend had been called to resurrect the Oracle of Delphi (or Oracle of Portland, if you want to be a stickler about it) and had enlisted a group of friends to help take the ritual roles. We worked the Oracle once a summer for six or seven years, I think. During that time, I played a variety of ritual roles, from Pythia to serving priestess. Sometime during the process, I decided I wanted to play Dionysos. No reason a woman couldn’t play this androgynous God!
A thyad, entranced
And there wasn’t. And that is how Dionysos first got His panther claws into me. And I wasn’t the only one. My own beloved husband had also played Dionysos, with the same result. Others in that ritual cast soon found themselves called to Bakchic frenzy and we created a thiasos, a Greek name for a spiritual group or circle. The Meliophis thiasos still survives today, along with another group spawned from it.
So that’s how Dionysos claimed one Isis priestess. But perhaps that’s not so unusual. You may recall that Plutarch wrote his essay “On Isis and Osiris” to a priestess friend of his, Clea or Klea. He writes to her about Isis and Osiris for Klea is a priestess of Isis. She is also the leader of the thyades at Delphi. Thyad is another name for maenad, the Divinely mad priestesses of Dionysos. So Plutarch’s friend, Klea, is both a devotee of Isis and of Dionysos. Plutarch writes to her:
“That Osiris is identical with Dionysus who could more fittingly know than yourself, Clea? For you are at the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris.”
So at least by Plutarch’s time, the identification of Dionysos with Osiris is so complete that the priest can say They are “identical” and know that his confidant will find it readily apparent.
See? Osiris, Lord of Wine—even today!
Plutarch goes on to note that the procession for the Apis bull looks very much like a Dionysian procession, thus both Osiris and Dionysos are Gods connected with the bull. Both Gods are torn to pieces—Dionysos by the Titans and Osiris by Set. Both Gods are resurrected afterwards; Dionysos by being born again of Semele and Osiris by being magically born again after Isis reassembles Him. Both Gods are Lords of Moisture, both are associated with trees. One of the sacred plants of Dionysos, ivy, is called by the Egyptians, “the plant of Osiris.”
Read Plutarch for yourself and you’ll see that he goes on at some length about the Dionysos-Osiris connection. Including the wine connection, of course.
Osiris is known as Lord of Wine as early as the Pyramid Texts and His identity as such only grew as time passed. In a magical papyrus from the second century CE, the “blood of Osiris,” clearly wine, is poured into a wine cup, and is to be given to a woman as part of an erotic spell:
“Give it, the blood of Osiris, that he gave to Isis to make her feel love in her heart for him night and day at any time, there not being time of deficiency.”
No doubt, the association of Osiris with wine is the reason that one story tells us that Isis became pregnant with Horus by eating grapes. Isis Herself is also given the epithet Mistress of Wine and Beer.
The sacred image of Dionysos from the Temple of Isis in Pompeii.
In addition to Her marriage to the Lord of Wine, Isis has Her own associations with the vine and with Dionysos. The Greeks considered the sacred star of Isis, Sirius, to be the bringer of wine since its late-summer rising coincided with the beginning of the grape harvest season. Ancient writers also speculated on a variety of Isis-Dionysos connections. One said that Dionysos is the son of Zeus and Isis. Another called Isis the daughter of Prometheus and said that She lived with Dionysos. Herodotus recorded the tradition that Apollo and Artemis are the children of Dionysos and Isis. The Ptolemaic rulers Auletes and his daughter, Cleopatra VII, identified themselves with Dionysos and Isis respectively, calling themselves “the new Dionysos” and “the new Isis.” In the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, sacred images of both Isis and Dionysos stood before the worshippers. And, of course, both Isis and Dionysos are Mystery Deities for both have suffered and so can have sympathy for human beings in our individual sufferings.
And so you see, the connection between Isis and Dionysos is not so far-fetched after all. May you indeed be blessed by Her magic and Divinely entranced in His ecstasy.
With a subject like magic, one of the first things you have to do is define what you mean by “magic.” One of my personal definitions is, “magic is what happens when we DO religion.” This works for me because I tend to consider all my spiritual practices as magical. You’ve no doubt heard a number of others, such as Crowley’s famous statement that magick (with a k for him) is “the Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.”
Mr. Crowley in full ritual gear. “Who said you could take my picture?”
Or Dion Fortune’s version in which consciousness is changed in conformity with will. Starhawk, in The Spiral Dance, defines it as “the art of sensing and shaping the subtle, unseen forces that flow through the world, of awakening deeper levels of consciousness beyond the rational” and emphasizes that magic is natural, not supernatural.
The ancient Egyptians would have agreed on the naturalness of magic. Magic or heka is considered an essential energy of the universe, is in all things, and is meant to be used by us.
For the purposes of this post today, in which I want to touch on how women in ancient Egypt interacted with Isis for magical purposes, I’d like to narrow the discussion to practical magic, that is, magic intended to have an actual effect in the actual world. I was reminded of another term for this type of practical magic from the introduction to Ancient Christian Magic byMarvin Meyer and Richard Smith. They argue for discarding the term “magic” because of its many negative connotations in favor of the more neutral “ritual power.” This applies pretty well to practical magic, the type of magic Meyer and Smith were studying. In practical magic, we almost invariably engage in some type of ritual that is intended to invoke power that is, in turn, directed toward an end.
Ancient Christian Magic by Meyer & Smith; well worth having a copy if you like the magical papyri
I’m also reading a dissertation by Meghan McGinnis on this topic. Her focus is late antiquity, which is the period from which we have the most records of personal magic, including the Magical Papyri as well as literary references to magic, which may or may not be based in fact. In late antiquity, magic has a more ambiguous reputation—even in Egypt—than it did in earlier Egyptian society. When it came to women, things were even more complicated because magic used by women was seen as sneakier than magic used by men. This is, of course, bullshit; but that sort of thing was in the atmosphere and stayed in the atmosphere there and elsewhere for a very long time. And it still persists. Hence female magic users are often described as “witches” (in the negative sense) while men are often described “mages” or “priests.”
For women in ancient Egypt, practical magic might be undertaken for fertility, healing, love, and business; fairly typical human concerns, though the fertility topic tended to land more heavily in female laps for the obvious reasons.
Magical book formed of seven pages enclosed by a cover with a veiled woman’s head and a bearded man. Lead, 4th–5th centuries AD. Origin unknown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Interestingly, in Egypt, it seems that use of practical magic among men and women was less “gendered” than it was in much of the rest of the magical world. Let’s take the example of love magic. According to McGinnis, in much of the world, you’ll find women using persuasive, seductive magic on men, but men using demanding, binding magic on women. In Egypt, you’ll find the same spell used for men or women. An example is the “Isis Love Spell” in which the text tells how to use the same spell for women or men. It says, “say these things on behalf of women” (that is, when doing the spell for a woman on a man). It continues, “But when [you are speaking] about women (on behalf of a man) then speak conversely so as to arouse the females after the males.”
Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus. Oldham Art Gallery, Oldham, U.K. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) What I love about this painting is that the sorceress is enthroned; very Isis-like way to wield magic!
In Egypt, the same applied in cursing magic and protective magic, though it seems to have been women’s responsibility to magically protect the children. Health and healing were the place where things diverged given the differing health concerns of women, including both fertility and contraception. Here we often find Isis being called upon to heal. One of my favorites is this one for healing inflammation of the uterus:
Write it [this formula] on a piece of silver when the moon is waning, and repeat it while you pour warm sea water [over it], utter the name [the magical names in the formula below] Perform it very well. Do this for 44 days.
“I invoke you, great Isis, ruling in the perfect blackness, mistress of the gods of heaven from birth, Atherneklesia Athernebouni Labisachthi Chomochoochi Isi Souse Mounte Tntoreo Iobast Bastai Ribat Chribat Oeresibat Chamarei Churithibath Souere Thartha Thabaaththa Thath Bathath Lathai Achra Abathai Ae. Make the womb of … attain the condition from god and be without inflammation, without danger, always without pain, now [say this] two times, at once, [say this] two times!”
This isn’t a Coptic vulva stone, but a Roman vulva amulet.
The incomprehensible words in the center of this formula are magical names. Most likely they are divine names and epithets that were corrupted by scribal error and/or misunderstanding over the many years that the formulae were copied and recopied. As unknown magical words, they gain their own kind of power. I personally LOVE these magical words from the papyri.
Women also wore amulets to keep their uteruses safe and healthy, including the famous Knot of Isis and an obscure amulet called a “vulva stone” mentioned in the Coptic medical texts, but of which we know little.
The marks of fingernails at the Temple of Isis at Philae
Women also made pilgrimage to sacred sites to help them conceive. At Isis’ temple at Philae, some pillars have grooves worn in the stone as women raked their fingernails on the stone to scrape bits of it away so that they could take it with them, possibly to ingest as a fertility potion.
I’m not aware of any spells that ask Isis to do harm, as some spells invoking other Underworld Goddesses do. However, we do find curses in which the curser asks that “the sacred rites of Isis that mean peace be turned against him;” a more passive-aggressive way of cursing.
And of course there were Isis formulae for divination—by direct vision, by dream, and by a method using palm leaves and the letters of the Coptic alphabet, probably similar to tarot cards in that each letter would have a specific meaning.
After looking at practical magic from a gender perspective, I am pleased to see that magic seems to have been an equal opportunity affair, with the exception that women were more concerned with fertility, women’s health issues, and the protection of children—at least in Egypt. Use of magic seems to have crossed socio-economic lines as well with both the poorest of the poor and wealthy businesswomen using it to further their aims. We know royal women used it, too; witness the famous “harem conspiracy” of dynastic times in one of the royal women used it to promote her son’s kingship.
Magic continued to be used by women and men even after Egypt was Christianized. From an earlier period, we know there were female magical specialists such as “the wise woman.” This title continued to be used in the late period and some of these wise women turn up in the literature as the enemies of various Christian monastics. Clerics speak against “hags who sing charms.” And we have the Late Antique comment of one rabbi that, “all women must be sorceresses.” And so it begins…
Woohooo, witchy woman! But note the dustpan, turns out she’s actually a servant girl.
This beautiful Isis altar was created for Her by Michael Butler Smith. I love it! You can see more of his work here.
If you’ve read Isis Magic and Offering to Isis, you may have noticed that—except when something actually is in the past—I always refer to the Goddess in present tense. In fact, I have been very, very, very, very conscious of doing so.
Because, you see, She IS.
She’s is not a Being Who was but is no more. She is not “just a myth,” some silly old story deserving of the past tense. Indeed, She is All that Was, and Is, and Ever Shall Be. She existed then, She exists now, and She will exist when the rugged, snowcapped mountain that, on a clear day, I can see from my rooftop has become a gentle, green hill.
And I know you know that. Which is why I am so puzzled when I sometimes see modern Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, and insert-your-self-definition-of-choice using the past tense about their Deities.
I am all that was, that is, that ever shall be…
It usually happens when telling Their sacred stories, trying to offer a brief “definition” of the Deity, or describing Their relationships with other Deities: “Isis was the Goddess of Magic.” Osiris was the husband of Isis.” Isn’t She still the Goddess of Magic? Isn’t He still Her husband? Now if you said, “To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the Goddess of Magic and Osiris was Her husband,” that would work. No more ancient Egyptians around today, so what they considered is indeed history. To me, however, Isis IS the Goddess of Magic and Osiris IS Her beloved husband.
I may have had a tiny rant on this subject inIsis Magic:
In writing of the history of the Isis religion and the many aspects in which She has appeared to humanity, I have always kept in mind that, to the people who worshipped Her then, as well as to those of us who do so today, Isis was and is a Living Goddess. She is not a historical curiosity. She is not a metaphor for our times. She is not feminist wish fulfillment. She is not merely a psychological archetype. She is Divine Love, Life, Magic, Mystery. She is Goddess and She is.
And speaking of myths, a myth isn’t something that is false—”oh, that’s just a myth.” No. A myth is a sacred story meant to tell us something about the Deity or Deities of the myth. Myths are “things that never happened but always are,” in the words of the 4th century CE Roman writer Sallustius. Or maybe myths are things that never happened historically, but are eternally true. Or ask Joseph Campbell. Or Jean Huston. And remember, just because it belongs to the corpus of the dominant monotheisms doesn’t mean it’s not mythology. Egyptian mythology is. Christian mythology is. Jewish mythology is. They are all sacred stories and they are all mythology.
Okay. I’m done. Enough said. And may we all mind our tenses and our mythologies.
I kinda love this. Isis is a public dance party in San Francisco, mixed by the Bulgarian artist KINK.
The Is-ness of Isis
But how do we know that Isis is? How do we know that She’s “real”? Must we simply have faith? Do we just choose to “believe in” Her? Can we prove Her is-ness?
We can prove Isis’ is-ness, Her reality, exactly as much as any human being can prove the reality of any Deity, which is to say, we cannot. There is no scientific proof for the Divine. There is no infallible book or teacher that holds all the answers to all the questions. Yet this—happily—means exactly nothing when it comes to the truth of Isis’ existence.
This question of belief and faith is much more vexed for those of us in non-mainstream (O how I dislike that designation!) religions. How often have you been asked by some friend or family member or (hopefully) well-meaning stranger, “Well, then, what do Isians—or Pagans or Polytheists or Wiccans or insert-your-self-definition-of-choice—believe?”
And how have you answered?
A powerful Madonna & Child
Many of us involved in alternative spirituality today were reared in one monotheistic religion or the other, most often, Christianity. From early on, we were taught to “believe in” God and Jesus. We were told that a particular book was the Word of God, “proved” that God was real, and explained precisely what He wanted us to do with our lives. In terms of religion, the clergy were to be our role models, the ones whose faith was strong, whose belief was true; we should have faith and believe as they do.
We got used to using those words, faith and belief, when speaking about religion. But perhaps those are not the right words.
For me, what proves that Isis is real is my experience of Her, not my faith or belief in Her. No single book is the touchstone for my spirituality, though I find spiritual truths in many, many books written by many, many wise human beings. I can’t transfer my deep knowing of Her reality to anyone else (though I do admit that the exercises and rituals I share with others are attempts to at least set up the conditions that will enable others to open up to their own experiences of Her). Nevertheless, experience of the Divine is an individual thing; each one of us must experience Isis for ourselves—even if we do so in a group. Clergy can facilitate. Books can show us a way. The experiences of others can strengthen us in our desire for our own experience of the Goddess. But, in the end, we will not truly know Isis for ourselves until we have our own experience of Her.
When that experience comes for the first time, it may bring awe, tears, joy, pain. When it comes again and again, throughout the many years, I can tell you that it may still bring all those things. But repeated and ongoing experience of the Goddess will also bring a true knowing, a personal gnosis, of Her. No longer operating just “on faith,” now we know Her reality because we have experienced it. No longer just believing, we have discovered Her truth for ourselves and it has become our truth.
Sacred image of Isis in Her temple at the rising of Her star
I got up at four this morning to go to the high place where I watch Her star in its heliacal rising. Alas, Portland did its mostly cloudy thing and all I could see was an occasional glimpse of the moon and one of the stars in Orion’s belt. So I came home, went to Her temple, opened the doors and illuminated Her lamps. She shines diamond bright, even when I cannot see Her.
I know this because I have experienced it many times. Perhaps I can’t sense Her in my life at a particular moment, yet I know She is there. Just because there are obscuring clouds in my world, doesn’t mean She doesn’t shine. And this just may be a drop of wisdom, born of both knowledge and experience.
Isis reaches out to the Shen, “Eternity”
In Plutarch’s essay on Isis and Osiris, he tells us that Isis is a Goddess “exceptionally wise and a lover of wisdom.” And so our Goddess is a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, as well as being wise Herself. A Turin papyrus says, “Isis was a woman wise in speech, her heart more cunning than the millions of men, her utterance was more excellent than the millions of Gods, she was more perceptive than millions of glorified spirits. She was not ignorant of anything in heaven or earth.” Perception. Wide-ranging knowledge. Cleverness. And both wise and effective speech. In this aspect, Isis is called Rekhiet, “the Wise Woman.” One of the titles of Isis-Sothis is Rekhit, “Knowledge,” all of which easily led to Isis’ identification with Sophia (Gk. “Wisdom”).
Isis’ wisdom makes Her kind as well. She is among the Hearing Deities usually called by the epithets “Great of Hearing” and “Of Hearing Ears” and Who were perceived as being especially wise and compassionate. There is a papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, which lists the many places around the Mediterranean where Isis was worshiped and the names and epithets by which She was known in those places (more on that here). In three of these cities, Isis was called Understanding.
Understanding is relational. One understands something or someone. In my case, and perhaps yours as well, Isis understands me. Not just how I am in the world (though She knows that, too), but why I am like that. And if I am listening, She can help me better understand…and so perhaps gain another little drop of wisdom. It’s like that. Drop by drop. Mistake and resolution. Confusion and epiphany. Isis’ deep eternal well of unfailing wisdom speaks to my gathering drops of it.
How does She speak to your wisdom?
Enjoy this lovely video of Isis as Sirius by artist Sirius Ugo Art
In my own work with Isis over the years, I have come to settle on four qualities that seem to me to capture much of Her “flavor” for me. They are power, wisdom, love, and magic.
When we first come to Isis, we often immediately perceive Her love, flowing out to us, enfolding us in Her sheltering wings. We are warmed in Her love. We rest in Her wings.
First, there is Her metaphysical power. This is the power that blows my hair back, makes we want to “kiss the ground before Your beautiful face,” as the ancient texts put it. This power makes me gasp, thrills my body and makes me shiver. Before this power, I can say only, “yes, Goddess.” And rejoice. Sometimes there’s a stupid grin on my face in Her powerful Presence. Sometimes Her power kicks open all my doors, both physical and spiritual and I have no idea what sort of expression might be on my face. Isis often hides this metaphysical power behind Her famous veil, for without the shielding of the veil, Her full Presence could overwhelm us.
But there is another, more earthly, kind of power that She shows us as well. And this is the power of persistence. Plutarch, in his essay On Isis and Osiris, says that Isis serves as an example to those enduring suffering in life. And so She does. As Her myths instruct, each time the Goddess suffers a tragedy, She uses Her power to pick Herself up and go on; and ultimately, to succeed.
Perhaps this seems a boring power? I don’t think so. For human beings, I believe this power of the Goddess is one of the keys to living. We will all experience pain, failure, death; indeed, some will suffer more than others. But we can all look to the stories of our Goddess passing through these things Herself to find our own power. What’s more, in our times of trouble, we can borrow some of Her strength. She will lend it to us in abundance. She is the fount of power, both mystical and persistent, and She never, ever runs dry. When we are in pain, She will take our hands and She will make us stronger, filling us with Her holy power.
A friend of this blog asked a very interesting question. She asked how we can reconcile the idea that Isis is both Mother of All with the idea that Isis has a mother Herself. It’s a question I’ve been wanting to work on ever since it was asked, so with this post I’m finally getting around to it.
It’s a very interesting question because it has to do with our conception of the nature of the Divine and Divine Beings in general.
So how do we start to look at this?
For me, history is always a good place to begin. It gives us a useful foothold to know what our ancestors thought about these things; after all, when it comes to Divinity and Divine Beings, we human beings have been thinking about this for a very long time indeed.
Atum arises from the Nun, the primordial waters of No-Thing-Ness
Erik Hornung’s Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, the One and the Many is a key text for understanding the nature of the Divine in terms of ancient Egypt. Hornung writes that the Egyptians had a multiplicity of approaches to the Divine and only when taken together can we see the whole picture. For them, he says, everything came from One because the non-existent is One, Undifferentiated Thing. Once something becomes existent, it also becomes multiple.
We see this in the Heliopolitan myth in which Atum comes forth from the Nun, the non-existent, the inert, and immediately begins generating other Deities through an act of masturbation: first Shu and Tefnut, Who beget Nuet and Geb, Who beget Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys.
And so we meet Isis, Her mother Nuet, and Her mother’s mother Tefnut. And there may even be a great grandmother present, for when Atum came into existence, He was both masculine and feminine; His “shadow” or “hand” (the one He used to masturbate) is the Goddess Iusaaset or Iusâas Who is said to be the Grandmother of all the Gods.
The Ennead of Heliopolis
Another important characteristic of the Divine in ancient Egypt is Its fluidity. Hornung says of the Egyptian Deities, “They are formulas rather than forms, and in their world, one is sometimes as if displaced into the world of elementary particles.” Deities may be combined with one another or split off from one another; one Deity can be the ba or soul of another; They can even be assimilated with foreign Deities without losing Their essence. “But wherever one turns to the divine in worship, addresses it and tends to it in cult” Hornung writes, “it appears as a single, well-defined figure that can for a moment unite all divinity within itself and does not share it with any other god.”
Mother Isis, nursing Horus and protected by the Vulture Mother
The primordiality of Isis is attested on the Great Pylon of Her graceful temple at Philæ. The Ptolemaic passage states that Isis “is the one who was in the beginning; the one who first came into existence on earth.” In the Coffin Texts, Isis is invoked with a group of Deities considered to be the most ancient: “O Re, Atum, Nu, Old One, Isis the Divine…” (Formula 1140). She is called Great Goddess Existing from the Beginning, Great One Who Initiated Existence, and Great One Who Is From the Beginning. Her very name, Iset or Throne, speaks to Her ancient nature.
By the time of the New Kingdom, Isis is routinely called Mother of All the Gods. Then, with Her worship spreading throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, Apuleius can write that Isis “brings the sweet love of a mother to the trials of the unfortunate,” while a Latin dedicatory inscription sums up Her all-encompassing nature: Tibi, Una Quae es Omnia, Dea Isis, “Unto Thee, the One Who art All, Goddess Isis.”
So now we have ancient attestations both of Isis’ primordiality and of Her generation from Her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. How do we resolve it?
Which came first? It’s a paradox.
If we are among those who are uncomfortable with paradox, I’m afraid there may be no satisfying reconciliation between these two ideas. If it has been deeply ingrained that there can only be one right answer—especially when it comes to spiritual questions—then it may seem impossible for both these things to be true. After all, they contradict each other. At the very least, we should be able to pick one as the “right” answer. At the very most, we may decide the contradiction means both things must be false.
And yet we have already seen that, at least to the ancient worshippers of Isis, both things were indeed true.
This is what paradox is; and religion is absolutely rife with it. Why? Because most religions, or spiritualities if you prefer, involve Mystery. Mystery is at the very core of the Divine and paradox is one of Its favorite languages. Yet this is not to say we should simply throw up our hands up and say, “Goddess works in mysterious ways” and quit thinking about it.
Quite the opposite in fact. Paradox invites thought. It is intended to teach. So what can we learn from our paradox: Isis is Mother of All, yet She Herself has a mother?
Originally an illustration for a book of pseudo-Indian love poetry called The Garden of Kama, this lovely illustration by Byam Shaw, 1914, captures something of Nuet caring for one of Her Holy Children
Let’s look at it through that ancient Egyptian lens that shows us a multiplicity of approaches to the Divine.
One way we can approach is as the Heliopolitan myth does: Isis is part of a Divine family. By being so, perhaps She is better able to understand human beings when we come to Her with our own familial problems. Her family relations make Her more suited to be a Soteira, a Savior Goddess, as She was known throughout the Mediterranean world.
We can also learn some important things about Isis through Her family relations. Isis is the daughter of Heaven (Nuet) and Earth (Geb). She is married to the Underworld God, Osiris, and is Herself a Goddess of the Underworld. Thus Isis is intimately connected to All That Is; She walks in all the Worlds.
Another approach to our paradox is through the fluidity of the Egyptian Deities that we talked about. If They can combine or split at will, or if one can become the ba of another, why can’t Isis be at once a Great Mother Herself and the daughter of a Great Mother?
Yet another approach is to open our hearts toward Isis in worship and experience Her for ourselves. Then, as Erik Hornung explained, Isis “appears as a single, well-defined figure that can for a moment unite all divinity” within Herself; She is the One Who is All, and She is the Mother of All.
By combining these approaches, and tolerating a little paradox, we learn more about Isis than we ever would have by restricting ourselves to a single position alone and Isis reveals Herself ever more as the Great Goddess She is.
One of my favorite tarot images: Isis as The Star in the Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett
Yes, yes, yes. It is getting to be that time. That time when She rises early, early in the dawning light. It’s the best thing that happens in August as far as I’m concerned. While everything else starts to crisp in the late summer heat, I am refreshed in Her rising power.
Here in Portland, Oregon in 2019, Sirius rises at 4:31 in the morning of August 23rd. Further south, She rises earlier. It all depends on your latitude. You can calculate Her rising in your area here with this online calculator. If you’d like to celebrate Isis’ birthday, then it would be two days before the rising of Sirius, in this case, August 21. So Isis is a Leo (at least at this latitude.) And well, She is Isis-Sakhmet, after all.
Some people see Isis in the pale, magical light of the moon.
Some see Her in the golden, lifegiving rays of the sun.
I do find Her there. Oh yes.
But for me, the heavenly body in which I most easily see Her is the star, Her star: Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek). I can’t help it. And it isn’t just because of Her strong ancient connections with the Fair Star of the Waters, the Herald of the Inundation. It’s something about the way my particular spiritual “stuff” fits with Her particular Divine “stuff.” Her diamond starlight draws me, lures me, illuminates my heart and mind.
I fell in love with Her as Lady of the Star the first time I saw Sirius through a telescope. As I watched, Her brilliant star sparkled with rays of green and blue and pink and white. It was incredibly, unutterably beautiful. It was alive. And pure.
The Star of Isis, coming soon to a dawn near me
Likely, you already know why Sirius was important to the ancient Egyptians, so I won’t repeat that here. But I would like to add a few interesting bits about Sirius that I haven’t written about before; in particular, the orientation of some Egyptian temples and shrines to Sirius at the time of their construction. For instance, the small Isis temple at Denderah and Isis’ great temple at Philae seem to have been oriented toward the rising of Sirius. Philae may even have a double stellar orientation: one axis to the rising of Sirius, one to the setting of Canopus.
Iset-Sopdet following Sah-Osiris in Their celestial boats
Overall, Egyptian temples have a variety of orientations. A recent-ish survey (2004-2008)—that actually went to all the temples in Egypt and measured the orientation; genius, no?—shows that most temples were oriented so that the main doorway faced the Nile. But not only that. It seems that the temples were also oriented toward other astronomical events, most especially the winter solstice sunrise, which makes very good sense as a symbol of rebirth.
Orientation to Sirius is rarer and harder to be certain of since the earth’s position in relation to the stars has shifted over the millennia.
A Horus temple, called the “Nest of Horus” on the summit of the highest peak of the Hills of Thebes, seems to have been oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius around 3000-2000 BCE. Nearby, an inscription carved in rock during the 17th dynasty (1580-1550 BCE) records the observation of just such a rising of Sirius. This high place would have been ideal for Horus in His nest to await the coming of His mother Isis. On the other hand, the archaeoastronomers who did the survey I mentioned believe that it may also be oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, an event closely associated with Horus.
The original temple of Satet on Elephantine; made of mudbrick nestled among the natural boulders
Another temple that may have a Sirius orientation is the archaic temple of the Goddess Satet on the island of Elephantine. The original temple was built amidst the great boulders on the island and really is quite simply the coolest temple ever. It seems that when it was built (around 3200 BCE) the rising of Sirius and the rising of the winter solstice sun were at the same place—so it could have been built to accommodate both important astronomical events.
After the initial study, the same team followed up with a survey (in 2008) of some temples in the Fayum that they hadn’t been able to study before as well as temples in Kush. They found generally the same results except for the Nile orientation as many of these temples were built far away from the river. They made note of a son of a Priest of Isis, Wayekiye, son of Hornakhtyotef, who was “hont-priest of Sopdet and wab-priest of the ”five living stars” (the planets) and “chief magician of the King of Kush;” this according to an inscription on Isis’ temple at Philae dating to about 227 CE. This emphasizes the importance and sacrality of the study of celestial objects and events to the kingdom and it is quite interesting that this was the work of the Chief Magician. This 2008 study revealed that the largest number of Kushite temples and pyramids were oriented to either the winter solstice sunrise or the rise of Sirius.
The star Sopdet over the head of the Goddess
Another interesting thing the study found was that by the time of the New Kingdom, in the 34 temples that were unmistakably dedicated to a Goddess—specifically Isis or a Goddess identified with Her—the most important celestial orientation point was the rising of Sirius. But, in addition to Sirius, the star Canopus was also a key orientation point. According to their data, Goddess temples in general were more frequently aligned with these very bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, while God temples were more often oriented to key solar-cycle events.
On the horizon, She rises, with Orion/Osiris above
If you are, like I am, feeling the anticipation of Her rising later this month, you might like to do some ritual. The Opening of the Ways is always good. Use it as an invitation to Her. Or try a simple meditation, allowing yourself to yearn for Her coming. Waiting for Her and wanting Her is sometimes a very good exercise. You might set out a vessel of water (a shiny silver one is nice) on the night of Her rising, let it be charged with that rising energy in the dawn, then use it as part of your holy water for purification. I have just such star water that I use waiting in my shrine right now.
There is a most interesting inscription on an artifact known as the Inventory Stela from the Giza Plateau.
It has caused a lot of excitement, especially among those who believe that the Sphinx and Pyramids are older than the fourth dynasty period to which Egyptologists usually attribute their construction.
You’ll immediately see why I was interested. Here’s what it says according to the great Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’s translation of the stele:
Live Horus the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He made for his mother Isis, the Divine Mother, Mistress of the Western Mountain [that is, the necropolis], a decree made on a stela, he gave to Her a divine offering, and he built Her a temple of stone, renewing what he had found, namely the Gods in Her place.
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He found the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the cavity of the Sphinx, on the northwest side of the House of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw, and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this Goddess, and he built a pyramid for the King’s Daughter, Henut-sen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran-Hor-em-akhet [that is, the Sphinx] is on the south of the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, and on the north of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw. The plans of the Image of Hor-em-akhet were brought in order to bring to revision the sayings of the disposition of the Image of the Very Redoubtable. He restored the statue all covered in painting, of the Guardian of the Atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze.
Isis protecting Osiris
He made to quarry the hind part of the nemes headdress, which was lacking, from gilded stone, and which had a length of about 7 ells [3.7 metres]. He came to make a tour, in order to see the thunderbolt, which stands in the Place of the Sycamore, so named because of a great sycamore, whose branches were struck when the Lord of Heaven descended upon the place of Hor-em-akhet, and also this image, retracing the erasure according to the above-mentioned disposition, which is written {…} of all the animals killed at Rostaw. It is a table for the vases full of these animals which, except for the thighs, were eaten nears these seven gods, demanding {…} (The God gave) the thought in his heart, of putting a written decree on the side of this Sphinx, in an hour of the night. [That is, the pharaoh had a dream from the Sphinx that he should do this.] The figure of this God, being cut in stone, is solid, and will exist to eternity, having always its face regarding the Orient.
The rest of the stele is taken up with a list of the sacred images of the Deities that Khufu restored within the Temple of Isis. The largest part of the stele is an inventory of these images, which is why it is known as “the Inventory Stele.”
Pretty cool, huh?
The Temple of Isis at Giza
What excites me, of course, is the Temple of Isis reference and the title “Mistress of the Pyramid.” What excites most of those who get excited is that the stele—supposed to have been carved by Khufu’s fourth-dynasty sculptors on the king’s orders—says that the Sphinx was already there! What’s more, apparently the little Temple of Isis was there even before Khufu built his Great Pyramid.
Alas, most Egyptologists agree that the stele is an archaized work, probably created sometime between the 25th and 26th dynasties, during a period when Nubian kings were trying to revitalize Egypt by harking back to its Old Kingdom glory days. The style of art and writing point most clearly to the 26th dynasty. Key to the evidence is that we have no reference to “Hwran” and “Hor-em-akhet” as names for the Sphinx until the 18th dynasty.
As for the Temple of Isis, it was originally a funerary chapel associated with the pyramid of Henutsen, Khufu’s half sister or, as the Inventory Stele says, “king’s daughter.” It was “found” by the pharaoh Pasebekhanu in the 21st dynasty and either converted into a small Temple of Isis at that time or, because the pharaoh either had or believed he had found the remains of an earlier Isis temple, had it refurbished as one. There Isis was worshipped as Lady of the Pyramid (or perhaps, Pyramids) until the Roman period. We even have evidence that Her cult had its own priesthood.
The Giza big three
Prior to the Inventory Stele, we find Isis on a Giza stele of Prince Amenomopet, a prince of the 18th dynasty. She is found on the so-called Stele C found in the Sphinx Temple and which shows the Sphinx and Isis, wearing the Horns and Disk Crown and within a shrine, receiving offerings from the prince. The image is captioned, “Isis, the Great, the Divine Mother, Queen of the Gods, One in Heaven, Who Has No Equal, the Elder [daughter of] Atum.” Dating on the stele is controversial (so what else is new in Egyptology?), but if the 18th dynasty is accurate, then Isis and the Sphinx are being worshipped together at Giza by at least that time.
After this period, we have a number of other Giza inscriptions that include Isis. Some that list Her with other Deities, notably Osiris and Horus, some that indicate that She was being worshipped alone. So it would seem that there was an active cult of Isis at Giza from at least the 18th dynasty. There is also evidence of private devotion at the Temple of Isis; a number of votive plaques have been found there as well. (By the way, all of this has been gathered together by Christiane M. Zivie-Coche in her book Giza Au Premier Millenaire Autour du Temple D’Isis, Dames des Pyramides; I’m struggling through the French, so bear with me.)
We also have several fragments of columns, probably from the Ramessid era, but which were reused in the Third Intermediate Period by Pharaoh Amenemope, on which the king offers wine to Osiris and Isis, Who is identified specifically as Lady of the Pyramids. Because the column was reused, we can’t be sure whether that epithet goes back to the Ramessid period or only began being used in the 21st dynasty. But from then on, one of the Goddess’ epithets is Mistress or Lady of the Pyramids, which likely refers to Her function of protecting the pyramids and the Osiris-kings in them, and surely to Her power to safeguard their rebirths as well.
Another view of the Giza Temple of Isis
Interestingly, a graffito on Henutsen’s pyramid from (probably) Egypt’s late period says that the pyramid is the burial place of Isis. Oriented to the south, it faced the symbolic burial place of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw.
Much later, in the mid 1500s, writer André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) continued the tradition of Isis with the Sphinx writing that the Sphinx has “the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter”. (This refers to the Isis-Io connection; Io is the daughter of Inachus, the River God. Zeus fell in love with Io. You can read the whole story here.)
I’ve never been much interested in pyramids or mummies or pharoahs. It was always the Deities for me. Guess that’s why I missed this epithet of Isis previously. Just goes to show, there’s always something new to learn about Her.
Do you believe in luck? Chance? Fate? Karma? Destiny?
For a minute, I thought that horseshoe on Lady Luck’s head was the Horns & Disk crown.
In some way or another, little or large, most of us do. We often discover the notion of good luck and bad luck as kids playing games. Grown ups playing games, such as sports figures, might have a lucky pair of socks or some other talisman they keep close by. As business people, we might wear a favorite suit to an important meeting; we look good in the suit, we feel more confident, and perhaps we boost our luck. And how many of us have not looked up our daily horoscopes from time to time to see what fate has in store for us?
As a general rule, I’m of the “you make your own luck” school. And yet I know people who don’t seem to be doing anything obviously wrong, but who have spectacularly bad luck—as well as those who seem to be doing everything wrong, yet stumble into some amazing piece of good luck.
Ancient peoples seem to have had a keen sense of luck or fate in their lives. Perhaps it was because they were living with a more constant awareness of their Deities, expecting Their intervention in both worldly and otherworldly matters. This tends to be true of very religious people today as well. And it tends to be true of those of us who have specifically invited the Deities into our lives.
The Seven Hathors
There are an number of ancient Egyptian Deities associated with luck and fate. At the birth of a child, the Seven Hathors would speak the various events (usually the bad ones) in the child’s life, They also declared her lifespan and manner of her death. Meshkhenet, the Birth Goddess, named the child’s fate and the work he would do. Renenutet, the Cobra Goddess, ordained how prosperous she would be. The God Shai, “Destiny,” also ruled over the child’s lifespan and “what is ordained” for him. You may be familiar with the famous Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days in which one is advised not to even go out of the house on the bad-luck days. How seriously anyone took advice like that, we don’t know.
A small Roman statuette of Isis Fortuna; She’s looking a bit burdened under that headdress of abundance. She also carries the Wheel of Fate and, I think, a cornucopia.
In the wider Mediterranean world, the Greeks invoked the Goddess Tyche as the Luck Goddess, while the Romans propitiated Her as Fortuna. We know of Tyche as a Goddess, not just a concept, as far back as the 8th century BCE. From that time on, She becomes more and more of a Divine personality. Both Tyche and Fortuna could be personal Deities, governing the life of the individual, as well as community Deities, ruling the fate and fortune of a city or empire. Every Roman emperor kept an image of Fortuna in his sleeping quarters in hopes of bringing good fortune to his reign.
Of course, not all fortune is good as any human being can tell you. Ancient epitaphs describe Tyche and Fortuna as perverse, cruel, and “hating the brave.” Nonetheless, there were always those who tried to steer chance or change a bad fate. They did this by appealing to the Deities, sometimes by undergoing Mystery initiations, and through the use of magic.
And here is where Isis comes into our story—as Goddess of Magic and Lady of the Mysteries. Over time, Isis came to be either associated with or assimilated to most of these Luck Goddesses and Gods. But as Goddess of Magic, Isis is never Blind Fate. She never demands one simply accept one’s given lot. Isis has the heka, the magical power, to move fate. The Goddess of Magic, the Lady of Mysteries is Fortune Who Sees; She is Destiny With Power. As the Great Enchantress, Isis is a major league Fate Changer.
This is reflected in the fact that Isis was invoked not merely as Tyche, Luck Itself, but as Agathe Tyche, Good Luck. In fact, of all the Goddesses in the Mediterranean world, Isis was the one Deity with Whom Agathe Tyche and Fortuna were most consistently assimilated.
Isis as Agathe Tyche and Osiris as Agathos Daimon, both in serpent form
As Agathe Tyche, Isis was considered the “luck” of a number of port cities, particularly Alexandria where She was paired with Agathos Daimon, “Good Spirit,” Who was identified with both Sarapis and Osiris. Legend had it that Tyche gave birth to a Divine figure called Isityche Who was said to symbolize the combination of Divine Providence and Chance. As you can easily see, Isityche is none other than Isis-Tyche. In this combined Divine figure, “Isis” represents the wise guidance of the Divine, while “Tyche” represents mere Chance. Isityche is once again a Fate Who Sees and it is the “Isi” part that makes that so.
Isis’ role as Savior Goddess also connected Her with Agathe Tyche. As far back as the 5th century BCE, the Greek poet Pindar calls Tyche a Savior Goddess, especially of those at sea. Isis Pelagia, “Isis of the Sea,” is also a savior as She brings Her charges to safe harbor, both literally and spiritually.
Do not mess with Nemesis
In some places, Tyche was associated with Nemesis, the Goddess of Divine Retribution. Thus Nemesis is the Goddess of Earned Fate. One of Isis’ many names was Nemesis and Isis Nemesis was commonly known by the 2nd century CE. There was a statue of Isis Nemesis on the holy island of Delos. And once again, Isis Nemesis is not a blind fate. If She sent ill luck your way, you probably deserved it.
As you might expect, Lady Luck was also connected with the heavens and with astrology. In a Mithraic document, reference is made to the Seven Tyches of the Sky, meaning the seven planets that rule astrological destiny. By the time of Isis’ famous Mysteries, the Goddess was known to rule the cosmos as She “of the black garments and seven stoles.” The seven stoles refer, no doubt, to the seven planets.
I mentioned earlier that initiation into the Mysteries was one way people might seek to change their fate. This was certainly true of the Mysteries of Isis. Since Isis rules fate, She can also change fate. In Apuleius’ tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, as Lucius is about to be rescued from his asinine state by a Priest of Isis with a garland of roses, Lucius sees the flowers not only as his salvation by Isis, “but, oh, it was more than a garland to me, it was a crown of victory over cruel Fortune, bestowed on me by the Goddess.”
Dear Isiacs, know that your Tyche, your Fortuna is Isityche and Isis Fortuna and that She is most decidedly not blind, although She will kick your ass when you need it. (And we all do now and then, don’t we?) And so, I wish you always, Good Luck.
With so many of us feeling a bit hopeless these days, I am reposting this small essay on the Dark Night of the Soul.
I read a short blog post the other day that made me sad…and sympathetic. It was by a young woman who felt she had lost the mystery of her Pagan path. The power of the rites had flown. She doubted. Her anguish was palpable in what she wrote.
This may have been the first time that had happened to her.
Yet I can guarantee that, if we follow any spiritual path for a sufficient length of time, this same thing will happen to each of us. At some point, the mystery dries up. The excitement dies down. The thrill of discovery is not as thrilling as it once was. Usually, this doesn’t happen all of a sudden and usually not in the early part of our journey with Isis. Rather, it’s a slow erosion that we don’t even notice. We just don’t feel like tending Her shrine or meditating or making offering today. We find we have other things to do. Practice slips away. That wonderful sense of Isis being with us in every step of our lives slips away. But we hardly notice.
Isis giving sustenance to the ba in the Otherworld
Until we do. Notice, that is. Then, we might panic a bit. Especially if we have chosen a priest/essly relationship with Isis. O my Goddess, O my Goddess, O my Goddess! What happened? Where is She? What have I (not!) done?
If we’re not careful—and forget to breathe—thoughts and feelings can quickly escalate from there. Why am I even doing this? What if it’s all a lie? Where is She? Where is She? Where is She? We ask questions, but get no answers. It isn’t like it was before. We don’t seem to be who we were before, either. We may feel like strangers to ourselves just as we feel like strangers to Isis. We feel alone, cut off from the Goddess, perhaps even cut off from other human beings and from other pleasures in our lives.
The first thing we must understand about such periods in the spiritual life is that, though we feel desperately alone, we are not. Spiritual people throughout the ages have had this experience. Prehistoric shamans probably had it. There’s even a term for it, a term you probably know. It’s the “dark night of the soul,” which is the title of a poem and a treatise written by the 16th century Christian Mystic known as Saint John of the Cross. He writes of it as a necessary part of the soul’s journey to union with God. The phrase is so perfectly evocative that it has been adopted by many spiritual traditions today.
A man and his ba greeting each other
There’s even an ancient Egyptian precedent. It’s generally known as A Man Tired of Life in Dispute with His Soul (Ba) and is found in Berlin Papyrus 3024. The papyrus itself has no title. What we have left is the last part of the work; the first part is missing. In it, a scribe is arguing with his ba, trying to convince his ba to die with him. The man berates himself and declares the world around him to be a horrible place. The ba argues that the scribe should live and die only when it truly is his time. Egyptologists consider the papyrus very obscure and difficult. As a result, there are many different translations of the papyrus and they differ widely in their interpretation.
We do not know the purpose of the papyrus or the period to which it is dated. Most scholars put it in the First Intermediate Period, a time of confusion between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Some have theorized that the author’s despair is a reflection of the chaos of that Intermediate Period. Bika Reed, who is of the Schwaller de Lubicz school of Egyptology, has interpreted it as an initiatic text, essentially dealing with the dark night of the soul.
We don’t know for sure, but the point is, this happens—and it has always happened. But what do we do when it happens?
A beautiful statue of a ba
I can tell you that I have had more than one dark night of the ba in my life with Isis. I have learned that patience and persistence are the keys to survival (as they are in so much of life). In these dark and dry places, we must be patient with ourselves and with the Goddess; we must persist in our practice. Even if we don’t feel anything happen when we meditate with Isis or when we place flowers upon Her altar, we must continue to do so. But we must also give ourselves a break. It’s okay if we don’t feel anything right now. It doesn’t mean Isis has abandoned us. It only means we are in a period of transition, even of initiation. Some consider a dark night to be part of the process of ego death that must precede a deeper relationship with the Divine, in our case, with Isis.
We may even give ourselves another type of break. If it had been our practice to meditate daily, perhaps we do so once every few days or once a week. That’s okay, too. The important thing is not to stop altogether, even if the sense of connection isn’t there. We just persist. Eventually—in a month, or even a year—something will change. The shell surrounding our hearts will crack. Like the Child Horus, our hearts will struggle out of the egg and be born. Eventually, we will return to our practice and find that it, too, is transformed. It is deeper, richer, juicier.
Held in Her wings, we are Becoming, even when we don’t know it.
The Blood of Isis amulet, with the name of the deceased
The ancient Egyptian amulet of the Tiet (also Tyet or Tet) is also known as the Girdle of Isis, the Buckle of Isis, the Knot of Isis, or the Blood of Isis. Appropriately, the amulet was often made of blood-red jasper, carnelian, or even red glass. (Red glass, by the way, is a precious material and quite difficult to make; the red color comes from the addition of gold to the molten glass.)
When paired with the Djed of Osiris, the Tiet can be seen as the feminine symbol of the Goddess’ womb just as the Djed can be seen as the masculine symbol of the God’s phallus.
The redness of the Tiet may represent the red lifeblood a mother sheds while giving birth. On the other hand, it might represent menstrual blood. Some say the amulet is shaped like the cloth worn by ancient Egyptian women during menstruation. Others have interpreted it as a representation of a ritual tampon that could be inserted in the vagina to prevent miscarriage. In this case, it would have been the amulet Isis used to protect Horus while He was still within Her womb. For a whole post on the Knot of Isis, click here.
The Goddess’ blood that is our topic today is the red blood of menstruation, in Egyptian hesmen. A menstruating woman is a hesmenet. If the interpretation of the Knot of Isis as a menstrual cloth or tampon is correct, we may be well within our rights to consider Isis as the patroness of women during their monthly menstruation as well as a special patroness of women during the fertile period of their lives, this is, while they are still menstruating regularly.
Women and girls preparing for a banquet from the Tomb of Rekhmire
A young woman’s first menstruation is a sign that she is now mature enough to become pregnant, thus the ancient Egyptians considered menstrual blood to be very potent. One of the methods a woman might use to encourage her own pregnancy was to rub menstrual blood on her thighs. The Ebers papyrus notes that the blood of a young woman whose menses have just come could be rubbed on the breasts, belly, and thighs of a woman whose breasts were too full of milk, “then the flow cannot be to her disadvantage.” Menstrual blood might also be used to anoint infants to protect them from evil. Could it be that the Tiet amulet was developed as a more convenient way to protect children, and by extension adults, from harm through the menstrual Blood of Isis?
We have very little from ancient Egypt about women’s menstrual customs. There is one precious mention on an ostracon (piece of pottery used as a writing surface) that scholars believe originated in Deir el-Medina, the workers’ village outside the Valley of the Kings. It says,
Year 9, fourth month of inundation, day 13. Day that the eight women came outside [to the] place of women, when they were menstruating. They got as far as the back of the house which […long gap…] the three walls …
The Tiet and the Djed, symbols of Isis and Osiris
From this reference, scholars infer that ancient Egyptian women, like many women throughout the ancient world (as well as some in the modern world) separated themselves from the rest of the village during their menstrual periods and went to “the place of women.” What’s more, at least eight women from this village were on the same cycle. But I wonder why this common, monthly event was significant enough for someone to write it down? As far as I can tell, no one has a guess.
None of the “places of women” have been found for certain, though there are several small structures on the outskirts of Deir el-Medina that could possibly fit the bill. Interestingly, at Deir el-Medina, the menstruation of wives or daughters is sometimes given as a reason for the man’s absence from work. The weird thing about this is that, if a man could be absent every time a wife or daughter had her period, he’d be absent at least two extra days per month…and we don’t find that many absences recorded. This has led some researchers to suggest that only in exceptional cases, for example if the woman was incapacitated by her period, could the man be absent to take care of the regular household chores.
Model of a home at Deir el-Medina; looks pretty pleasant
The other reference to a place of menstruation comes from much later—in the Ptolemaic period—when we find a reference to a “place beneath the stairs,” actually within the home, as the place of menstruation. This room must have been reasonably common for we find reference to it in a number of documents related to the sale or purchase of a home. I am imagining some ancient realtor noting the lovely little “place beneath the stairs” as a selling feature of the house. (It should be noted that a woman was the seller in at least one of these real estate transactions and in another, a woman was the buyer; more evidence of women’s relatively high status in Egypt.)
In a house in Amarna, in just such a place beneath the stairs, archeologists found two model beds made of clay, parts of two female figurines, and a stela depicting a woman wearing a cone on her head while leading a young girl before the Goddess Taweret. That all seems pretty clear to me; this is where women go to menstruate and where they celebrate the coming of age of young women, who are being introduced to Taweret, the hippopotamus-form Goddess of pregnancy and childbirth.
Egyptian woman and man taking food & drink from the Tree Goddess in the Otherworld
These special places for menstruating women seem to indicate a taboo around menstruation; the women absented themselves from the village or stayed in a special room. We also have lists of bwt, prohibitions or “evil”, in the 42 Egyptian nomes and some of them include menstruation and menstruating women—along with things like a black bull, a heart, and a head. We’re not sure in what way any of these things were to be prohibited; perhaps by keeping them out of the nome? At any rate, menstruation in these cases was seen as something negative.
There does not seem to have been a notion of actual pollution around menstruation or menstruating women, however. Contact with a menstruating woman was not dangerous to a man, even though she was bwt in some nomes. In fact, some scholars think it was the menstruating woman who needed protection during her period. Thus, in the case of the absent workers of Deir el-Medina, the workers stayed away from the death-touched tombs in which they were working in order to protect their menstruating female relatives. Conversely, the Egyptians may have wanted to prevent the non-pregnancy/fertility of a menstruating woman from touching the cosmic womb of the royal tomb through her male relative, and thus rendering it magically ineffective.
May the Blood of Isis protect you
Interestingly, it may be that menstruation was also associated with cleansing. Hesmen is not only the word for “menstruation,” but is also found with the meaning “purification.” It was also a term for the ritual cleanser par excellence, natron.
From the evidence, menstruation in ancient Egypt had both positive and negative connotations. On the one hand, it was a sign that a woman could become pregnant—something most women desired—and it was used as a potent protection or cure. On the other hand, if one was menstruating, one was clearly not pregnant at the time, so menstruation might be incompatible with work on the magical womb of the tomb, which must be kept fertile at all times.
I think many women would agree with this ambivalent attitude toward their periods. Having a period is at once a beautiful confirmation of connection with the cycles of Nature and the Great Goddess, and it can be a painful and messy time, too. In whatever way we are currently experiencing those cycles, we can be sure that the protection, as well as the shared female experience, of the Holy Blood of Isis is with us. I don’t know about you, but I think I may put on my Tiet amulet today.
This is the last in the Kore Kosmou series for now. But I’d also like to let you know that I found out some other strange and interesting information on the Isis-Paris post. I’ve updated it in the reddish text here.
We ended last time wondering whether Horus, the son and student of Isis, might be the “Pupil of the Eye of the World” rather than Isis. So let’s have a look at that.
As you already know, the Kore Kosmou is one of the Hermetica, spiritual teaching texts meant to illuminate the student. Like a number of other Hermetica, it appears to end with a significant hymn. I say “appears” because our fragmentary text ends just as Isis is about to reveal the hymn to Horus.
“Ay, mother, Horus said. On me as well bestow the knowledge of this hymn, that I may not remain in ignorance.
The hymn that we don’t have is the culmination of the entire text and must have had great magical/spiritual power for it is the hymn Isis and Osiris recited before They re-ascended to the heavens after having completed Their civilizing Work on earth.
I’ve been reading a paper by Jorgen Sorensen about the Egyptian background of the Kore Kosmou. He suggests that the missing hymn, combined with a secret that Isis refuses to reveal to Horus earlier in the text could be the text’s main point.
The secret comes up in Isis’ narrative when the embodied souls, not remembering their divine origins, are really messing up the world and the Elements complain to the Creator. They ask that an “Efflux” of the Creator be sent to earth. The Creator consents and as it is spoken, it is so. The One the Elements have asked for is already on earth serving as judge and ruler so that all human beings receive the fate they deserve.
Horus interrupts to ask how this efflux or emanation came to earth. Isis replies,
“I may not tell the story of [this] birth; for it is not permitted to describe the origin of thy descent, O Horus, [son] of mighty power, lest afterwards the way-of-birth of the immortal Gods should be known unto men—except so far that God the Monarch, the universal Orderer and Architect, sent for a little while thy mighty sire Osiris, and the mightiest Goddess Isis, that they might help the world, for all things needed them.” (Mead, Kore Kosmou, 36)
Thus the coming into being of the efflux of the Divine is intimately connected with the coming into being of Horus Himself. It is a secret that Horus, a Hermetic student but not yet an adept, isn’t ready to know.
Sorensen suggests that had Isis revealed the secret, it would have been that Horus Himself is the emanation of the Divine that dwells on earth. He notes that the Kore Kosmou is not alone in this and that a number of other Hermetica teach that the student, when fully adept, may indeed be a source of divinity in the world.
A Roman-era Harpokrates, reaching for His mother
Sorensen thinks that the ancient Egyptian idea of the pharaoh as a living God is behind the concept of the Hermetic adept as a point of Divine light in the world. It is, of course, significant that the pharaoh is “the Living Horus,” the very embodiment of Horus, son of Isis, in the text.
What’s more, since kore can sometimes be translated as just “eye” rather than pupil, the “Eye of the World” can be considered the Eye of Horus, the Eye that, when healed and complete, becomes a great blessing for the world for it is the very essence of offerings and the greatest talisman of ancient Egypt.
I think I like this idea.
It would be consistent with the expansion of Egyptian funerary/spiritual literature to be available to more people. At first such texts were only for the king, then they became available to nobles, and eventually anyone, at least anyone who was able to purchase their own copy of the book of the dead. And we should remember that the hoped-for culmination of the post mortum process described in the texts was in essence to become a deity, living among the Deities.
Isis Pelagia, Roman, now in the Capitoline Museum, photo by Ann Raia.
By the time of the Hermetica, the idea developed so that living human beings can find the divine potential within themselves. What’s more, their Hermetic studies and practices can help them work toward that potential. Like the healed and complete Eye of Horus, the fully initiated, “completed” adept can bring blessings.
During the first centuries of the Common Era, the period of the Kore Kosmou, the religions of the Mediterranean world were in turmoil. This is the period of the rise of Christianity, the development of Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, as well as other new and changing religious and philosophical movements. People were dealing with the concept of monotheism, discovering its benefits—and paying its price, as Egyptologist Jan Assman puts it in the title of his book The Price of Monotheism.
Sorenson sees a society in which many people felt that the Divine had created the world then simply left it on its own, much like the complaints of the Elements in Kore Kosmou. This may be simply part of the human condition or it may have been something particular to that time.
Hermes Trismegistos as a rather pale pharaoh as pictured in Manly P. Hall’s Secret Teachings of All Ages
And yet many people today have that same feeling. That may be why we are seeing the rise of fundamentalist religions that insist that only certain beliefs and behaviors will put the world to right and bring whatever their particular conception of God is back into the world, while at the same time, fewer people identify as religious and more as atheist. Here in the first century of the second millennium, perhaps we too are in a period of spiritual upheaval.
During those first centuries of the first millennium, it may be that the sense of abandonment was even more acutely felt in Egypt where the Goddesses and Gods had always extended Themselves intimately into the manifest world. The solution of the Hermetic schools (which more and more scholars are now coming to accept derive from genuine Egyptian tradition) was to bring the ancient ideal of the Divine pharaoh forward so that now the individual adept—no longer just the pharaoh—could be a light of the Divine on earth, helping to turn the world to right (Ma’at) through their own being and actions.
There is much more that we could talk about in relation to the Kore Kosmou. For instance, we could trace the powers and blessings in the Isis & Osiris aretalogy of our text to concepts in Egyptian tradition. But this is work I haven’t yet done. So for now, we’ll leave the Kore Kosmou and next week’s post will be on another topic. (For aretalogy in relation to Isis, see here and here and even some here.)
For those of you just dropping by, we’re discussing a fragment of an ancient text entitled Kore Kosmou. In it, Isis is the Divine Teacher and She instructs Her “Wondrous Son” Horus in spiritual truths.
So let’s start with the title of the text. Unlike some other ancient texts, it actually does have a title: Kore Kosmou. The simplest translation is Virgin (or Maiden) of the World. “Kore” is “girl, maiden, virgin,” as, for example, Persephone is called Kore—Maiden or Daughter—to Demeter’s Meter—Mother. Kosmou is “of the world, universe.”
Oh, but it ain’t that simple.
As is so often the case when discussing Things Ancient, interpretations vary. In fact, as far as I’ve seen, there has yet to be a single agreed-upon scholarly interpretation of the title, though they all have something to offer us.
So let’s have a look. First of all, who is this Virgin, Maiden, or Daughter of Whom we speak?
The most obvious answer is that She is Isis. Isis is the teacher in this text and She, like so many Egyptian Goddesses, has a youthful Form. In a Hymn to Osiris, Isis is even called the Great Virgin/Maiden (hwn.t or hunet). She is also a Divine Daughter, the daughter of Heaven, Nuet, and of Earth, Geb. What’s more, if the dating of the text to 1st-3rd century CE is correct, Our Goddess is by that time considered a kosmokrator, a universal ruler, so it’s no stretch to consider Isis to be the Maiden of the Universe in the title.
So, problem solved?
Oh, heck no.
What if the Virgin of the Universe isn’t Isis at all? It may be that the Virgin is Nature Herself. Nature is sexually virgin in the tale. She creates Her own abundance from seeds which She Herself supplies to the Sole Ruler and which the Sole Ruler then returns to Her in order to start the chain of fruitfulness upon the earth. We also find identification of Kore with Nature in another Hermetic text, the Perfect Discourse. That text reiterates that the Creator “does not possess the nourishment for all mortal living creatures, for it is Kore Who bears the fruit.” The text is, after all, a creation story, so perhaps the title refers to the creation of the Virgin Universe.
On the other hand, Isis Herself may certainly be considered to be Nature. Plutarch calls Her “the female principle in Nature” (On Isis & Osiris, 53). We have also discussed the idea that Isis’ name of “Throne” may refer to Her as the Original Place of Being. So perhaps we are intended to understand that Isis, Nature, and Kore Kosmou are one.
And that’s all fine. But now we come to the more interesting interpretations.
They revolve around another meaning of the word kore. For it also means “pupil,” as in the pupil of the eye, that black, liquid, bottomless center in the center of the eye.
Now at first, that seems rather strange. How can a maiden and the pupil of the eye be related concepts? But it turns out that many cultures have an expression for the pupil that translates as “the girl in the eye.” In fact, according to ethnologists who’ve studied such expressions, about one-third of the languages in the world have a term for the pupil of the eye that refers to a small human or human-like being. For example, Spanish speakers call the pupil the nina del ojo, the “girl of the eye,” which ultimately derives from Latin, which had the expression: pupilla, the “little girl” of the eye. (“Figurative Language in a Universalist Perspective,” Cecil H. Brown and Stanley R. Witkowski, American Ethnologist, Vol. 8, No. 3, Symbolism and Cognition (Aug., 1981), pp. 596-615.)
The Eye of Horus with its deep, black pupil
The origin of the expression is probably the fact that when we look into someone’s eyes, we can see a tiny reflection of ourselves in the black mirror of the pupil.
The ancient Egyptians had this expression, too. Pyramid Text 155 says to Osiris, “Take to thyself the damsel [girl] who is in the eye of Horus; open thy mouth with her.” (That is Samuel Mercer’s translation; Faulkner translates it “pupil of the eye of Horus.” It is both.) Later, the expression was simplified to “the girl in the eye” and then just “the girl” so that by the time the Kore Kosmou was written, the pupil was frequently just called “the girl.” And yes, the Greek in which our text was written also has the expression: the pupil of the eye is the kore.
Not every language in which this expression occurs sees a girl in the pupil; some see babies, little men, or even angels. But in Egypt, it was a hunet, a young woman. Why?
This is pure speculation, but when it comes to the Eye of Horus, perhaps it is because His mother Isis is the young woman Who is reflected in His own Child God’s eye. Or perhaps it is because of the power of the Uraeus “Eye” Goddesses in Egypt.
Isis as a Uraeus Serpent
There are many myths in which the Divine Eye goes forth in the form of a powerful Serpent Goddess, usually as a great protective power.
Isis is among these Goddesses of the Eye. In the Festival Songs of Isis & Nephthys from the Bremner-Rhind papyrus (Faulkner translation), Isis protects both Osiris and Horus and She is “Mistress of the Universe, Who came forth from the Eye of Horus, Noble Serpent which issued from Re, and which came forth from the pupil in the eye of Atum when Re arose on the First Occasion.”
But there are more mysteries of the eye. A praise of Amun-Re from Hibis demonstrates the power and mystery of the Divine Eye: “O Amun-Re Who hides Himself in His iris/pupil, Ba Who illumines by means of His oracular wedjat-eyes, Who manifests a manifestation: sacred one Who cannot be known. Brilliant of visible forms, Who hides Himself with His mysterious akh-eye: mysterious one, Whose secrets cannot be known.”
Reflection in the pupil of the eye
As the physical eyes are the organs of perception of the light of the sun and the moon, so the Divine Eyes can illuminate or conceal the deep Mysteries hidden within Their depths, most especially at the core, in the pupil, in the deepest, yet most reflective, part of the eye. For in the darkness of the pupil of the eye lies concealed spiritual illumination.
Thus it seems that the title of our text may also be translated as Pupil of the Eye of the World/Universe and that, as would-be initiates, we should understand the blackness of the pupil to conceal spiritual light. And indeed, in the Kore Kosmou, the Hermetic teacher Isis, begins the process of illuminating Her Wondrous Son, Horus, Who is Himself the possessor of Egypt’s most important eye, the talisman of talismans, the offering of offerings, the Eye of Horus.
The Kore Kosmou teaches about creation, and souls, and reincarnation, and the nature of Divinity. It reveals Mysteries—but not yet all of them—to the Hermetic student, Horus. Thus a title like Kore Kosmou, with its hidden meanings, is quite appropriate to this teaching text.
Isis is the Girl in the Pupil of the Eye. As a Holy Cobra Goddess, She comes forth from the Pupil of the Eye of Atum and She is a Divine Eye Goddess Herself. She knows the secrets of the darknesses of the kosmos (cosmos), a word that not only means “world” or “universe,” but also order, and so perhaps even Ma’et. Thus She is the one Who can appropriately reveal—or conceal—the Mysteries of the creation, ordering, and structure of the universe and the souls within it.
So it seems I am not yet done with the Kore Kosmou. I’m still researching and reading and I think I shall perhaps have some more to say on this subject next time.
But on the other hand, perhaps we should understand Horus as the Pupil of the Eye of the World; He is, after all, the student or “pupil” of His mother. And yes, that word is related, too…
“As Above, So Below” is probably the most well-known Hermetic axiom
My chat with Janus and Domonic of The Magician and the Fool podcast has been published. We had fun talking about a wide range of Isis topics.You can listen here.
This week, I’m starting a 3-part series on an ancient text known as the Kore Kosmou. When this post was first published, it was in answer to a request and a question from a friend of this blog, Andrea, about this particular text…
But first, some background.
The Kore Kosmou is one of the Hermetic texts and it follows the common pattern of a dialog between teacher and student. In the Hermetica, most often the teacher is Hermes Trismegistos and the student Asclepios, Ammon, or “Tat,” the son of Hermes. In the KoreKosmou, Isis is the teacher and Her son, Horus, is the student.
Certainly, there were many more Hermetica than what has come down to us. It also seems likely that there were once more Isis-as-teacher texts than just the Kore Kosmou and the few fragments we have. This, of course, would make a great deal of sense: Isis and Thoth-Hermes—Egypt’s two great and wise Magician Deities—serving as the main Hermetic teachers. It is interesting to note that, as time goes on, more and more scholars are recognizing the genuinely Egyptian elements that are such an important part of the Hermetica. More on that later.
But in case you’re not familiar with Hermeticism and the Hermetica, here’s a brief introduction and then we’ll delve into Andrea’s question about the Kore Kosmou and discuss what the text contains.
Hermeticism & the Hermetic Texts
Hermes Trismegistos as a human sage, from the Siena Cathedral
Hermeticism began as a late Pagan branch of esotericism and was one of the many products of the meeting of the ancient Hellenic and Egyptian cultures in the centuries surrounding the beginning of the Common Era. The primordial and venerable religion of Egypt, its ancient wisdom, and its eternal magic combined with the dominant Greek culture, religion, and philosophy to produce a powerful mix that continues to influence esotericism to the present day.
Hermeticism’s most fertile home was the great syncretic Egyptian capital city of Alexandria—a city that had honored Isis from its inception and which left an indelible stamp upon the Hermetic tradition. As religious wisdom and philosophy flowed into Alexandria from many cultures, it likewise flowed into Hermeticism. In addition to Egyptian and Greek Paganism, Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and Iranian Zoroastrian all added to the Hermetic amalgamation.
Thoth; Trismegistos’ Egyptian original
The Hermetic texts address a wide range of topics, including cosmic principles, the nature and orders of Being and beings, the human desire to know the Divine, astrology, alchemy, magic, and medicine, among others.
Scholars generally place the individual texts of the Hermetica in one of two camps: the philosophical and religious Hermetica, or the technical—that is, magical or theurgic—Hermetica. The main philosophical Hermetic texts that have come down to us are contained in the Corpus Hermeticum, a collection of approximately 17 treatises written in Latin and Greek. The exact date for the composition of the texts is unknown, but they are usually thought to be dated to the second or third centuries CE. Technical Hermetica range more broadly, and are tentatively dated to a period spanning the first century CE to the fourth. It is quite possible, however, that at least some of the texts were based on significantly earlier models.
We’re not sure when the Kore Kosmou was written either. In 1909, Egyptologist Flinders Petrie suggested that it could be as old as 510 BCE and thus is the oldest of the Hermetic texts. Frankly, it doesn’t feel quite that old to me and although it can be considered one of the most “Egyptian” of the Hermetica, it has enough in common with the other texts that the 1st-3rd centuries CE date seems more right to me.
So What Was the Question?
God the Father, from the Sistine Chapel
Andrea wanted to know what I thought about the androcentricity of the creation story told in Kore Kosmou. And it definitely is androcentric. The Supreme Creator is a He and a Father. “Nature,” the product of Creation, is a beautiful feminine Being. So there ya go; stereotypes all around.
But there’s absolutely nothing special about that. It’s just the usual sexism of the day.
As a woman reading the ancient esoteric texts, I almost always have to mentally “translate” or interpret them for myself. Is the author talking about human men or humankind? Are women intended to be included in this, that, or the other statement? Were women even worth bothering about in the author’s eyes? If there is an encounter with a feminine Divine Being in the text, does the same spiritual dynamic apply to women or would a woman have an encounter with a masculine Divine Being?
This is true of…well…just about every ancient text I’ve ever read, no matter the tradition. Not only must I puzzle through the meaning of the ancient author, but then I must try to discover whether or not it was intended to relate to me as a female seeker. (And all of this applies to heterosexuals; how much more translation is required if you’re LBGTQ?) So I grit my teeth and try to ignore the sexism to find the underlying spiritual meaning. Some days are better than others but, I must admit, it does get tiresome.
Okay, I’m done now. With that small rant duly ranted, let’s discover what’s in the Kore Kosmou.
As it is my opinion that the Ultimate Divine is ultimately beyond gender, as I summarize the text, I shall be using the term “Creator” and “Sole Ruler” (both of which are in the original text) instead of Father, Craftsman, God, or the masculine pronoun when referring to the Ultimate Divine. All other Deities retain Their traditional, textural pronouns.
What’s in the Kore Kosmou?
Give heed, my son Horus, for you shall hear secret doctrine, of which our forefather Kamephis was the first teacher. It so befell that Hermes heard this teaching from Kamephis, the eldest of our race. I heard it from Hermes, the writer of records, at the time when he initiated me in the Black Rites [possibly alchemy], and you shall hear it now from me…
—Kore Kosmou, Walter Scott translation
Isis from Athanasius Kircher
This is how Isis begins Her dialog. She then describes for Her son the creation of the Universe, the Elements, and Nature. Nature is the most important female character in the story and is described as “a being in woman’s form, right lovely, at the sight of whom the gods were smitten with amazement.”
Isis next describes how the Souls—which are Divine and share with the Creator the ability to create—were made and how they became too proud of their creative ability, overstepping the bounds the Creator decreed for them.
To punish the Souls for their pride, the Souls are placed into human bodies by Hermes Trismegistos on command of the Sole Ruler. Yet the Creator is merciful. As consolation to the imprisoned Souls, the Creator allows them to forget their heavenly origins, to receive blessings from the Deities, and to return to the Heavens provided they do good upon earth.
Nevertheless, once the Souls are embodied, they began to fight amongst themselves, killing each other and polluting the world, so much so that the Elements complain to the Creator. The Creator bids the Elements to return to Their work, for help is on the way.
And so the Creator sends Isis and Osiris, Who are “the efflux” of the Divine, to help create order, religion, and civilization.
The Goddess and God bring “that which is Divine” into human life, thereby putting a stop to savage slaughter. They establish the rites of worship on earth, consecrate temples, and give human beings food and shelter. They introduce the oath and law and justice. They teach the art of mummification. They discover the cause of death by finding that the life-breath eventually returns to its place of origin. They learn the ways of the Spirits and inscribe the secrets on stones for human edification. They devise the “magic of the prophet-priests” so that human souls can be nurtured by philosophy and human bodies can be healed by the healing art.
Having brought all these Divine blessings to earth, Isis and Osiris are allowed to return to heaven after speaking a hymn. Horus asks to learn the hymn…and that is, unfortunately, where the text breaks off.
Isis and Osiris, from a stele now in the Louvre, photo by Rama
Another fragment seems to pick up the tale and has Isis answering Horus’ questions about the nature of the many types of Souls, how they are differentiated, and how they become intelligent.
In the surviving Hermetica, Isis often concerns Herself with Souls; an interest continuing from Her early function as a funerary Goddess and a guide and protector of the dead. In other Isis-to-Horus fragments, Isis teaches about reincarnation and the nature of Souls. In their Isian and Hermetic concern with the journey of the Soul after death, the texts resonate with the power of the ancient Egyptian tradition from which they, in part, derive.
Read It for Yourself
If you’d like to read the whole text for yourself, you can find the G.R.S. Mead translation here. And the Kingsford-Maitland translation here. Both of these translations are in the public domain, which is why you find them online. Mead’s is overly poetic in true Victorian fashion and Kingsford & Maitland had their own agenda. Of the translations I know of, the Walter Scott version seems best to me, though he is criticized for some of the “corrections” he made. It, however, is not in the public domain, so you won’t find it online. Always remember; translation is an art, not a science.
But it seems that I’m not quite done with the Kore Kosmou. So next time, we’ll talk about some of the genuinely Egyptian elements in the text and find out how it may indeed be the most “Egyptian” of the Hermetica.
An early Greek Kore, looking very Egyptian, complete with braided wig
I’m going to be talking with Janus Sunaj and Domonic of the Magician and the Fool podcast next week about the Mysteries of Isis…and probably some other things, too. I’ll let you know when the podcast is available. In the meantime, here are some speculations about Isis, Egypt, Greece, and the Mysteries…
Most modern scholars now accept the influence of ancient Egypt on ancient Greece. We are finally able to take ancient Greek writers a bit more seriously when they tell us that—well, yes—the fractious city-states of Greece were indeed impressed and influenced by the ancient-even-then, ever magical, amazingly unified, and seemingly peaceful land of Egypt.
Hey, nobody operates in a cultural vacuum and the ancients didn’t either.
Writing in the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus told his readers flatly that in the Egyptian language Demeter is Isis. In fact, he seems convinced that most of the names of the Greek Deities and many of the Greek religious rites came to the aboriginal Greeks, the Pelasgians, by way of Egypt. Among these rites are the famous Greek women’s rites of Demeter called Thesmophoria.
In his essay On Isis and Osiris, the Greek priest Plutarch remarks that “Among the Greeks also many things are done which are similar to the Egyptian ceremonies in the shrines of Isis, and they do them at about the same time.”
One of the Eleusinian priests, the Dadouchos
Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian historian, records that Erechtheus, the mythical king of Athens, was himself Egyptian and it was he who instituted the Eleusinian rites after obtaining grain from Egypt during a Greek famine. He also said that the Eumolpids, the family that traditionally ran the Eleusinian Mysteries, were of Egyptian priestly stock.
How seriously should we take this? Could there be an Egyptian seed at the center of the defining Mysteries of ancient Greece, the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Kore?
It is quite true that we have no incontrovertible proof of an Egyptian origin of the important Eleusinian Mysteries. We do, however, have interesting footprints to follow up. We know for certain that either Egyptians were at Eleusis or that Greeks brought Egyptian talismans to Eleusis for Egyptian scarabs and a symbol of Isis, which date to the ninth or eighth century BCE, have been discovered there. The eighth century is the time to which the Eleusinian rites are usually dated, though it is likely that their true origins go back further, even if the rites were not in the form they eventually took.
Greek Bee Goddess…in what looks like an Egyptian nemyss.
The correspondences between the Eleusinian myth and the Isis and Osiris myth as related in Plutarch are notable: the search for a missing Divine Beloved, the mournful aspect of the searching Goddess, the connection of the Beloved with the Underworld, and the (possible in the case of Eleusinian myth) birth of a Divine Child. Plutarch’s 2nd century CE rendition of the story is usually seen as Demetrian influence on Greco-Egyptian Isis and Her Greco-Roman Mysteries. But what if it was the other way around?
There are scholars who have traced magical formulae from Egypt to Greece, then followed them as they returned from Greece—changed—to be re-adopted in Egypt at a later period. Perhaps something like that happened with the Eleusinian/Isis-Osiris myth. While the basis of the myth—missing Beloved, searching, mourning, finding—may have its roots in Egypt, by the time it came back to Egypt, it had been changed. For instance, the “weeping at the well” incident in both the Demeterian myth and Plutarchian Isis myth is not found in any Egyptian rendition of the Isis and Osiris tale. It would indeed seem that this revised piece of the story was adopted from Demeter’s myth into that of Isis.
Egyptian death rites as Mysteries
While this is speculative, it’s not just me speculating. There are actual scholars thinking along these lines. One of them is the highly controversial Martin Bernal (author of Black Athena, which traces African origins for a great deal of Greek culture). The much less controversial Walter Burkert has something to say about eastern influence, too, in his The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Even scholars of a more classical bent admit the influence of Egypt on early Greece, especially in matters of religion.
Bernal’s work as a whole should not be dismissed just because he goes too far in some cases. In my opinion, overall he’s right: Egypt particularly, as well as other long-established near eastern nations, exerted a huge influence on early Greece in its formative stages. Once Greece became established, of course, it developed its unique culture. But again, no culture exists in a vacuum. We are all influenced by each other.
The entrance to the Eleusinian sanctuary today
Bernal spends a lot of time making etymological connections (etymology is the study of word origins) which are, at the very least, interesting. For instance, there are a number of Eleusinian terms that have no Indo-European cognates, yet can be explained in terms of ancient Egyptian or West Semitic. I won’t go into all the details because, if you’re not an etymologist, you might start to snore. One of these terms is the word “mysteries” itself. While it is usually explained as coming from an Indo-European root that refers to “closing the mouth” or staying silent, Bernal suggests that it might be better and more directly explained by an Egyptian root that refers to secrecy.
In this scenario, “mysteries” is derived from ancient Egyptian em sesheta (you can see the “m” and “s” sound there), meaning “in secret.” Sesheta, “secret,” was a word often used in relation to the Isis-Osiris rites, as well as other Egyptian rites.
Bernal also make connections between Greek words associated with the Mysteries and other Egyptian words, but frankly, I don’t have enough etymological background to judge. For instance, Bernal offers a connection between the Greek root of telete (initiation), which also means “completion” with the Egyptian djer, meaning “limit, end, or entire.” (You may recall this word from our discussion of Nephthys as the Lady of the Limit during the last few weeks.)
The Hierophant from the Thoth tarot deck; the Hierophant is the High Priest at Eleusis, and of the Eumolpid family
As I mentioned earlier, Diodorus Siculus recorded the tradition that the Eleusinian priestly family, the Eumolpids, were originally Egyptian. The ancient Greek scholar Apollodorus said that the Eumolpids were from Eithiopia. Apparently the Eumolpids themselves believed they had Egyptian origins, while others said they were from Thrace. Bernal suggests that the name Eumolpid, as well as the name of the second Eleusinian priestly family, the Keryxes, who served as Sacred Heralds, have plausible Afroasiatic origins. In fact, he thinks that Greek keryx comes from Egyptian qa kheru, “high or loud of voice.” And that, if true, is extremely cool.
Of course, the big thing that may have come to the Greeks from Egypt is the idea of a blessed life after death. In the work of early Greek poets like Homer, the afterlife is a place of wan grey ghosts and no joy. Where did the idea of a joyful afterlife—for initiates, anyway—come from? Surely, surely it was influenced by Greece’s neighbors to the south, where they were well-versed in the ways of the afterlife and its joys, assuming one knew the proper passwords and pathways. It seems likely that this knowledge, which would have been sesheta until Books of the Dead became more widely available for everyone in Egypt, could have been turned into a Mystery cult at Eleusis, where a Goddess searched for a missing Beloved, eventually found Her, though She was forever changed having become the Queen of the Dead, and then bestowed the Mystery of a blessed life after death on Her initiates.
And we haven’t even gotten to the harmonies between Isis and Demeter, which are much more interesting than just Their “Mother Goddess” connection. Perhaps we’ll go there next time.
The monumental head of Isis-Sothis-Demeter from the Roman Emperor Hadian’s Villa, now in the Vatican Museum; I have seen Her in person and She is wow.
An Egyptian rudder with seeing eyes and regenerative lotus decoration
As a river-dependent civilization, ancient Egypt was quite familiar with the rudders used to steer boats.
So it is perhaps no great leap to see the guiding rudder as a symbol of the greater guidance of the Divine.
Just as Egyptian pilots steered their earthly boats with these rudders, so they became a symbol of guidance and direction in the afterlife. And so may we also take them as a symbol of guidance in our spiritual lives as well as our everyday lives.
In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, for example, the deceased prays that Horus, the son of Isis, will be in charge of the rudder of his funerary boat and that Thoth and Ma’et will be beside Him. In other words, he prays to be guided by the strength of Horus and the wisdom of Thoth and Ma’et.
When depicted in the funerary books, these Divine steering-oars are often decorated with the Eyes of Horus, representing the power of the Sun and Moon, and the blue lotuses of rebirth. In a group of four, the oars represent the four cardinal directions.
The seven Cows of Heaven and Their Bull, with four rudders representing the directions
The rudder is also connected with the concept of abundance. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased prays to the rudders of the directions asking them to grant bread, beer, offerings, provisions, long life, prosperity, health, and joy. Furthermore, directly following this prayer to the rudders is the formula of the Divine Cows and Their Bull. It, too, has to do with provisions in the afterlife, as well as rebirth from the Divine Cow. The proximity of the formulae of the Divine rudders and the Divine bovines, as well as their similar subject matter, indicates a relationship between them. Not only do both have to do with abundance and life, but also, like the four rudders, the four legs of the Divine Cow we sometimes associated with the four directions.
Isis guides the boat of the deceased in the Otherworld
Both cow and rudder are, in turn, related to Isis. She is the Divine Cow Who gives abundance and rebirth and She is also a Goddess Who guides. In Egyptian texts, Isis is one of the Deities Who guides the Sun God’s boat. In later Graeco-Roman sources, Isis is specifically connected with the symbol of the guiding rudder. As Isis Pelagia, Isis of the Sea, the Goddess was known to steer the ship of life with Her sacred rudder. Mariners of all kinds invoked Her guidance and protection as they crossed the Mediterranean, braving its many dangers.
In the Mediterranean world, the symbolism of the rudder continued to embrace the ideas of abundance and prosperity. In Hellenic lands, the rudder was a symbol of Agathe Tyche (“Good Fortune”). In Rome, it was the emblem of the Goddess Fortuna—and both Goddesses were intimately connected with Isis. In fact, of all the Goddesses in the areas influenced by Greece and Rome, Isis was the one Deity with Whom Agathe Tyche and Fortuna were most consistently assimilated.
Isis-Fortuna with rudder and cornucopia
As Agathe Tyche, Isis was considered the “luck” of a number of port cities, particularly Alexandria. In fact, Her headdress emphasizes her connection with cities. As guardian of cities, Tyche wears an elaborate crown shaped like city walls. Legend had it that Tyche gave birth to a Divine figure called Isityche Who was said to symbolize the combination of Divine Providence and Chance. As you can easily see, Isityche is none other than Isis-Tyche. In this combined Divine figure, “Isis” represents the wise guidance of the Divine, while “Tyche”—sometimes depicted as blind—represents unseeing Chance.
The Roman version of Agathe Tyche was the Goddess Fortuna. She was extremely popular throughout the Roman world. Every Roman emperor kept an image of Fortuna in his sleeping quarters in hopes of bringing good fortune to his reign. Anyone with particularly good or bad luck was said to have their own “Fortuna.” Fortuna even had Her own oracular shrines. Her symbols include the Wheel of Fate, a sphere representing the World that She rules, the cornucopia of plenty, and a rudder with which She steers Fate. When Fortuna is depicted specifically as Isis Fortuna, She also wears the horns and disk crown of the abundant Egyptian Cow Goddess; thus reuniting the Egyptian symbols of cow and rudder in the figure of the Goddess Isis.
Isis Fortuna with rudder, from the Temple of Isis, Pompeii
Like Tyche, Fortuna was often said to be blind. And, in fact, it may have been precisely because of this that Isis became so strongly tied to both Tyche and Fortuna. The Goddess Isis was well known to be the very opposite of blind. She is specifically a Goddess Who sees and understands the needs of Her worshippers. By invoking not just blind Tyche or blind Fortuna, but Isis Tyche and Isis Fortuna, one was invoking a seeing Fate—a more auspicious Fate steered by a skillful Mistress of the Rudder, the wise Goddess Isis.
Whether as the Divine Cow Goddess Who gives provisions and rebirth or as the guiding Goddess of the rudder and the cornucopia, Isis goes before us, guiding and leading us to abundance in all things. May She bless you. May She steer you toward that which you most desire. May She help you grow in strength and beauty of soul. Amma, Iset.
In honor of Notre Dame de Paris (“Our Lady of Paris”), and in the expectation that She will indeed rise again in beauty, I offer this post on Our Lady’s extensive connections with the ancient city of Paris.
If you’ve read Isiac lore broadly, you’ve probably come across the idea that the city of Paris is named for Isis, presumably from Per- (the Egyptian word for “house” or “temple”) or Par- (French for “with”) and Her name, Isis. We find that notion in places like Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code and before him in David Wood’s 1986 book GenIsis: First Book of Revelations and before that in the musings of 17th century amateur “orientalists.”
Unfortunately, it ain’t so.
A Gallo-Roman Isis & Harpocrates
The name of France’s capital city comes from the Gaulish Parisii clan who had a settlement on what would become the Isle de la Cité, and along the banks of the Seine, starting about 250 BCE. They may have called it something like Lucotocia, possibly from the Celtic word for “marsh.” When Rome conquered them, the Romans built a military base there called Lutetia Parisiorum (“Lutetia of the Parisii”), which eventually got shortened to Paris. Interestingly, there is single mention (in Ptolemy’s Geographica) of a Parisii clan in Yorkshire, England as well, and scholars have speculated whether the Yorkshire Parisii were connected to the Seine Parisii. What’s more, while no one is entirely sure what the name Parisii means, some Celticists think it could come from proto-Celtic words meaning, “commanders,” or perhaps, “fighters,” or—my personal favorite— “they of the cauldrons.”
A gold coin of the Parisii tribe showing a (probably) female head, likely a Goddess. But not Isis.
It is very, very highly unlikely that the “-isii” part of the Parisii tribal name has anything to do with Isis—even in the face of quite a bit of wild-eyed speculation to the contrary; speculation that actually started hundreds of years ago and has grown exponentially of late as things get uncritically replicated across the interwebs.
Section of a map of Roman Paris (after Crypte Archéologique 2005, Paris; MacKendrick 1972).
Nevertheless, is it quite true that Isis does have a long history in France—and with the city of Paris. Isis came to Gaul with the Romans, in the same way that Her worship spread throughout the Roman Empire. So yes indeed, there were shrines and temples to Isis in France. This map shows the supposed location of a Roman Temple of Isis, at or near what is today the abbey of St. Germain des Prés in Paris. It is here, rather than at Notre Dame*, that we have the best hope of finding a lingering tradition of Isis’ presence even quite late.
A writer called Jacques le Grant, or Jacques leGrand, writing about the 1400s, recorded this Isis-Paris connection, tracing it to the 8th century CE:
In the days of Charlemagne [8th century] . . . there was a city named Iseos, so named because of the goddess Isis who was venerated there. Now it is called Melun. [Melun is about an hour south of Paris.] Paris owes its name to the same circumstances, Parisius is said to be similar to Iseos, because it is located on the River Seine in the same manner as Melun.
A French manuscript of the 1400s showing Isis arriving in Paris on Her ship
Le Grant’s reference probably comes from a poem about the siege of Paris by the Normans, written in 886 or 887 CE by a monk named Arbon, who had actually witnessed the siege. In it, Arbon supposedly mentions the veneration of Isis at Melun in his time (!). (I say ‘supposedly’ for I have not seen this poem myself so must withhold judgment.)
In a manuscript from about the same time, now in the French Bibliotheque Nationale, we see Isis, dressed as a Medieval woman, alighting in Paris from a ship with the caption, “Here is seen the very ancient Isis, Goddess and queen of the Egyptians.” Apparently, as in this manuscript, Isis’ association with ships and sailing—think Isis Pelagia and Isis Pharia—was one of the reasons the French connected Her with Paris; one of the city’s symbols is a boat, due to the boatlike shape of the Isle de la Cité (where the Parisii were centered), in the middle of the Seine, in the heart of Paris.
Whether or not this is true is not the point. The point is that the city’s closeness with Isis is part of its lore.
The abbey of St. Germain des Prés in Paris
As shown on the map above, some say that a Roman Temple of Isis used to stand in the vicinity of what is today the abbey of St. Germain des Prés. A number of French historians in the 1500s repeated that tradition. And, of course, it was common for churches to be constructed on top of Pagan temples; indeed, it was policy. But I haven’t yet been able to find out whether the St. Germain des Prés tradition is based on archeology or simply on historical references. If you have an archeological source, please tip me off.
However, in texts, we do have an “Issy” associated with the site of the St. Germain complex. Sometime in the 500s, Childebert I, the Frankish king of Paris, gave his estate, Issy, to found a monastery on the site that would eventually become St. Germain des Prés. Scholars think the name “Issy” comes from Medieval Latin Isciacum, probably meaning “estate of Isicius,” a Gallo-Roman landowner. Isicius was most certainly named for the Goddess.
A Roman Isis and Harpocrates. Very Madonna and Child, no?
Is this perhaps the Isis Who stands behind the tradition of a Temple of Isis beneath St. Germain? Writing in the early 1600s, Jacques de Breul, a monk actually from St. Germain des Prés, repeated the tradition that the name Issy came from Isis—which it ultimately did if the Isiacum conjecture is correct—but it doesn’t necessarily confirm the existence of a temple on the spot.
Another St. Germain “Isis sighting” I’m trying to track down is the story that, in 1514, the Archbishop of Meaux had a statue—which looked for all the world like the Christian Madonna and Child—removed from St. Germain des Prés and destroyed.
Update: So the story I’ve found so far is stranger than just “destroyed.” Where I’ve tracked the tale so far is to a footnote in a 1685 translation of The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of Pantagruel by François Rabelais. This particular footnote was the work of one of the many commentators/translators on the French work…which I shall not bother you with relating. But you can dig through it yourself if you are so inclined here.
Anyway. Here’s a paraphrase of the footnote because there’s a bit of weirdness in the translation and I think it will be more comprehensible if I paraphrase:
First of all, the footnote says that Isis is believed to have been the tutelary Deity of the Parisians “when they were in the state of Paganism.” (Starts well, no?) Then it proceeds to say that the “idol” they had consecrated to Her was “still subsisting, and in good condition” in the abbey of St. Gemain des Près as of the beginning of the 16th century. However, the note goes on to say, in 1514, it was taken away by order of Guillaume Briçonnet, Bishop of Meaux and Abbot of St. Germain, who put up a red cross in the room where it had been. Even then, the image was not destroyed. “As for the idol, her statue, which was tall and erect, rough and discolored with age,” it was placed against the wall on the north side, where the crucifix of the church stands, “and it was naked, except some drapery in a certain place of two.”
Well. So, not destroyed, but kept? Interesting. What’s more, I kinda think the storyteller here may be telling stories. There were no Isis images “naked, except some drapery in a certain place or two.” Aphrodite, perhaps. But I seriously doubt an image like that would have ended up in a church. It seems to me more like an ever-so-pagan fantasy of the old gentlemen of the 16th century. (Those of you who have been following along have, no doubt, seen several of my rants about the old gentlemen of the 19th century.)
What did that Archbishop think he knew? I’ve ordered a book with the references. I’ll let you know what discover once I check it out. (See above.)
Isis had Her place in the French Revolution as well. As part of the celebrations commemorating the anniversary of the Revolution, in 1793, the Parisians built a huge image of Isis, symbolizing Nature and Regeneration, in the form of a fountain with water pouring from Her breasts. Both politicians and populace came to drink of the water of the Goddess and be renewed. The fountain was—quel dommage!—only temporary. As it was made of bronze-painted plaster, it no longer exists.
The Parisian ship with enthroned Isis on the prow from Napoleon’s 1811 Paris Coat of Arms
The demise of the Revolution did not mean the end of Isis’ French connection. It remained so prevalent that Napoleon—who had developed a severe case of Egyptomania following his Egyptian expedition in 1799—had it checked out by his own scholar. Apparently he was sufficiently convinced that he had a Parisian Coat of Arms designed that included an enthroned Isis on the prow of the “Ship of Paris,” which was shown following the Goddess’ sacred star.
(Much of this has been collected by Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock in their book, Talisman. It’s an older publication, but I just ordered a copy. I suspect I may reach different conclusions than the authors did, but I do appreciate the work they did in collecting the pieces of the tradition and I will definitely be following up on the references.)
Isis is also to be found deeply embedded in the occult traditions of Paris, but that’s a topic too big to get into in one post. Here are links to some Isis connections from the early 20th century with two of my favorite occultists: MacGregor and Moina Mathers.
Dali with his work, called both “Aphrodisiac Telephone” and “Lobster Telephone”…no doubt Nerval’s lobster inspired the Surrealist artist
Yet for now, let’s turn our attention toward the Arts of the period, for She is very much found there as well.
There we meet Gérard de Nerval, French Romantic poet, Symbolist hero, and proto-Surrealist, and a person who did much thinking on the Divine Feminine.
As was so often true —especially for the artists, writers, and occultists who were clearly sharing ideas during this period—for Nerval, one of the most important forms the Divine Feminine takes is Isis. Nerval is a mad poet; literally. He seemed to have suffered from depression and probably schizophrenia. He believed that dreams were the true reality, which is why he was so inspired the Surrealists, but sometimes he had trouble sorting out dream from waking state. He also had some charming and well-known quirks. For instance, he kept a pet lobster, which he took for walks in the park leading it by a blue, satin ribbon, and declaring it a better pet than a dog for it never barked and knew the secrets of the deeps.
You can still get it…
Nerval wrote poems and prose, including a piece called “Isis” (1845). It appears in a collection of short prose entitled Les Filles du Feu, the “Girls of Fire.” Isis is the only Goddess among the fiery girls, though Nerval wrote poems about other Pagan Goddesses and Gods as well. “Isis” is more journalistic than poetic. Nerval writes about a party held by an ambassador in Naples. It was a costumed ball in which the life of ancient Pompeii was evoked, including the sunset rites at the Temple of Isis, which Nerval found to be the most inspiring events of the evening.
Nerval describes the temple and the “secret” rites held therein, all the while comparing them and Isis with Christian rites and Mary. This discussion then serves as a launching pad for Nerval to write about Apuleius’ tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. You can feel his yearning as he describes the yearning of Lucius for Isis.
Indeed Nerval spent most of his life longing for feminine love, both human and Divine. Eventually, he could no longer function in the world, his mental illness incapacitating him. He committed suicide just ten years after he wrote “Isis”.
Sometimes we might wonder how it is that Isis, unlike so many of our ancient Goddesses, was never forgotten. From the time She was first recognized in ancient Egypt to now, Isis has never been completely out of human consciousness. Anytime we start pulling on an Isis thread—lore about ancient Isis temples in Paris or Fiery Girls Who take up residence in a mad poet’s dreams—we keep on discovering Her. For me, these discoveries, while always delightful, are no longer surprising. She is always there because She has always been there. She could not be forgotten because She is.
The Pilier des Nautes found beneath Notre Dame
*Notre Dame is not the site of an ancient temple of Isis. There is a crypt beneath the Notre Dame plaza that you can go into and see the archeological remains, all the way back to the Roman ones. For a long time, people thought that there may have been a Jupiter temple there due to the discovery of a large Roman column dedicated to Jupiter by the guild of boatmen in the 1st century CE. It has both Roman and Celtic Deities on it and is the oldest monument in Paris. Today, scholars have evidence to think that the pillar was moved from the Left Bank to the Isle de la Cité…so the question of whether the island was home to any Pagan temple remains unanswered.
The Blood of Isis amulet, with the name of the deceased
The ancient Egyptian amulet of the Tiet (also Tyet or Tet) is also known as the Girdle of Isis, the Buckle of Isis, the Knot of Isis, or the Blood of Isis. Appropriately, the amulet was often made of blood-red jasper, carnelian, or even red glass. (Red glass, by the way, is a precious material and quite difficult to make; the red color comes from the addition of gold to the molten glass.)
When paired with the Djed of Osiris, the Tiet can be seen as the feminine symbol of the Goddess’ womb just as the Djed can be seen as the masculine symbol of the God’s phallus.
The redness of the Tiet may represent the red lifeblood a mother sheds while giving birth. On the other hand, it might represent menstrual blood. Some say the amulet is shaped like the cloth worn by women during menstruation. Others have interpreted it as a representation of a ritual tampon that could be inserted in the vagina to prevent miscarriage. In this case, it would have been the amulet Isis used to protect Horus while He was still within Her womb. For a whole post on the Knot of Isis, click here.
The Goddess’ blood that is our topic today is the red blood of menstruation, in Egyptian hesmen. A menstruating woman is a hesmenet. If the interpretation of the Knot of Isis as a menstrual cloth or tampon is correct, we may be well within our rights to consider Isis as the patroness of women during their monthly menstruation as well as a special patroness of women during the fertile period of their lives, this is, while they are still menstruating regularly.
Women and girls preparing for a banquet from the Tomb of Rekhmire
A young woman’s first menstruation is a sign that she is now mature enough to become pregnant, thus the ancient Egyptians considered menstrual blood to be very potent. One of the methods a woman might use to encourage her own pregnancy was to rub menstrual blood on her thighs. The Ebers papyrus notes that the blood of a young woman whose menses have just come could be rubbed on the breasts, belly, and thighs of a woman whose breasts were too full of milk, “then the flow cannot be to her disadvantage.” Menstrual blood might also be used to anoint infants to protect them from evil. Could it be that the Tiet amulet was developed as a more convenient way to protect children, and by extension adults, from harm through the menstrual Blood of Isis?
We have very little from ancient Egypt about women’s menstrual customs. There is one precious mention on an ostracon (piece of pottery used as a writing surface) that scholars believe originated in Deir el-Medina, the workers’ village outside the Valley of the Kings. It says,
Year 9, fourth month of inundation, day 13. Day that the eight women came outside [to the] place of women, when they were menstruating. They got as far as the back of the house which […long gap…] the three walls …
The Tiet and the Djed, symbols of Isis and Osiris
From this reference, scholars infer that ancient Egyptian women, like many women throughout the ancient world (as well as some in the modern world) separated themselves from the rest of the village during their menstrual periods and went to “the place of women.” What’s more, at least eight women from this village were on the same cycle. But I wonder why this common, monthly event was significant enough for someone to write it down? As far as I can tell, no one has a guess.
None of the “places of women” have been found for certain, though there are several small structures on the outskirts of Deir el-Medina that could possibly fit the bill. Interestingly, at Deir el-Medina, the menstruation of wives or daughters is sometimes given as a reason for the man’s absence from work. The weird thing about this is that, if a man could be absent every time a wife or daughter had her period, he’d be absent at least two extra days per month…and we don’t find that many absences recorded. This has led some researchers to suggest that only in exceptional cases, for example if the woman was incapacitated by her period, could the man be absent to take care of the regular household chores.
Model of a home at Deir el-Medina; looks pretty pleasant
The other reference to a place of menstruation comes from much later—in the Ptolemaic period—when we find a reference to a “place beneath the stairs,” actually within the home, as the place of menstruation. This room must have been reasonably common for we find reference to it in a number of documents related to the sale or purchase of a home. I am imagining some ancient realtor noting the lovely little “place beneath the stairs” as a selling feature of the house. (It should be noted that a woman was the seller in at least one of these real estate transactions and in another, a woman was the buyer; more evidence of women’s relatively high status in Egypt.)
In a house in Amarna, in just such a place beneath the stairs, archeologists found two model beds made of clay, parts of two female figurines, and a stela depicting a woman wearing a cone on her head while leading a young girl before the Goddess Taweret. That all seems pretty clear to me; this is where women go to menstruate and where they celebrate the coming of age of young women, who are being introduced to Taweret, the hippopotamus-form Goddess of pregnancy and childbirth.
Egyptian woman and man taking food & drink from the Tree Goddess in the Otherworld
These special places for menstruating women seem to indicate a taboo around menstruation; the women absented themselves from the village or stayed in a special room. We also have lists of bwt, prohibitions or “evil”, in the 42 Egyptian nomes and some of them include menstruation and menstruating women—along with things like a black bull, a heart, and a head. We’re not sure in what way any of these things were to be prohibited; perhaps by keeping them out of the nome? At any rate, menstruation in these cases was seen as something negative.
There does not seem to have been a notion of actual pollution around menstruation or menstruating women, however. Contact with a menstruating woman was not dangerous to a man, even though she was bwt in some nomes. In fact, some scholars think it was the menstruating woman who needed protection during her period. Thus, in the case of the absent workers of Deir el-Medina, the workers stayed away from the death-touched tombs in which they were working in order to protect their menstruating female relatives. Conversely, the Egyptians may have wanted to prevent the non-pregnancy/fertility of a menstruating woman from touching the cosmic womb of the royal tomb through her male relative, and thus rendering it magically ineffective.
May the Blood of Isis protect you
Interestingly, it may be that menstruation was also associated with cleansing. Hesmen is not only the word for “menstruation,” but is also found with the meaning “purification.” It was also a term for the ritual cleanser par excellence, natron.
From the evidence, menstruation in ancient Egypt had both positive and negative connotations. On the one hand, it was a sign that a woman could become pregnant—something most women desired—and it was used as a potent protection or cure. On the other hand, if one was menstruating, one was clearly not pregnant at the time, so menstruation might be incompatible with work on the magical womb of the tomb, which must be kept fertile at all times.
I think many women would agree with this ambivalent attitude toward their periods. Having a period is at once a beautiful confirmation of connection with the cycles of Nature and the Great Goddess, and it can be a painful and messy time, too. In whatever way we are currently experiencing those cycles, we can be sure that the protection, as well as the shared female experience, of the Holy Blood of Isis is with us. I don’t know about you, but I think I may put on my Tiet amulet today.
I’m out with my thiasos this weekend, so am posting this a bit early. I hadn’t known that there was an Isis temple at Giza. But, yep, there is.
There is a most interesting inscription on an artifact known as the Inventory Stela from the Giza Plateau.
It has caused a lot of excitement, especially among those who believe that the Sphinx and Pyramids are older than the fourth dynasty period to which Egyptologists usually attribute their construction.
You’ll immediately see why I was interested. Here’s what it says according to the great Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’s translation of the stele:
Live Horus the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He made for his mother Isis, the Divine Mother, Mistress of the Western Mountain [that is, the necropolis], a decree made on a stela, he gave to Her a divine offering, and he built Her a temple of stone, renewing what he had found, namely the Gods in Her place.
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He found the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the cavity of the Sphinx, on the northwest side of the House of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw, and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this Goddess, and he built a pyramid for the King’s Daughter, Henut-sen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran-Hor-em-akhet [that is, the Sphinx] is on the south of the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, and on the north of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw. The plans of the Image of Hor-em-akhet were brought in order to bring to revision the sayings of the disposition of the Image of the Very Redoubtable. He restored the statue all covered in painting, of the Guardian of the Atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze.
Isis protecting Osiris
He made to quarry the hind part of the nemes headdress, which was lacking, from gilded stone, and which had a length of about 7 ells [3.7 metres]. He came to make a tour, in order to see the thunderbolt, which stands in the Place of the Sycamore, so named because of a great sycamore, whose branches were struck when the Lord of Heaven descended upon the place of Hor-em-akhet, and also this image, retracing the erasure according to the above-mentioned disposition, which is written {…} of all the animals killed at Rostaw. It is a table for the vases full of these animals which, except for the thighs, were eaten nears these seven gods, demanding {…} (The God gave) the thought in his heart, of putting a written decree on the side of this Sphinx, in an hour of the night. [That is, the pharaoh had a dream from the Sphinx that he should do this.] The figure of this God, being cut in stone, is solid, and will exist to eternity, having always its face regarding the Orient.
The rest of the stele is taken up with a list of the sacred images of the Deities that Khufu restored within the Temple of Isis. The largest part of the stele is an inventory of these images, which is why it is known as “the Inventory Stele.”
Pretty cool, huh?
The Temple of Isis at Giza
What excites me, of course, is the Temple of Isis reference and the title “Mistress of the Pyramid.” What excites most of those who get excited is that the stele—supposed to have been carved by Khufu’s fourth-dynasty sculptors on the king’s orders—says that the Sphinx was already there! What’s more, apparently the little Temple of Isis was there even before Khufu built his Great Pyramid.
Alas, most Egyptologists agree that the stele is an archaized work, probably created sometime between the 25th and 26th dynasties, during a period when Nubian kings were trying to revitalize Egypt by harking back to its Old Kingdom glory days. The style of art and writing point most clearly to the 26th dynasty. Key to the evidence is that we have no reference to “Hwran” and “Hor-em-akhet” as names for the Sphinx until the 18th dynasty.
As for the Temple of Isis, it was originally a funerary chapel associated with the pyramid of Henutsen, Khufu’s half sister or, as the Inventory Stele says, “king’s daughter.” It was “found” by the pharaoh Pasebekhanu in the 21st dynasty and either converted into a small Temple of Isis at that time or, because the pharaoh either had or believed he had found the remains of an earlier Isis temple, had it refurbished as one. There Isis was worshipped as Lady of the Pyramid (or perhaps, Pyramids) until the Roman period. We even have evidence that Her cult had its own priesthood.
The Giza big three
Prior to the Inventory Stele, we find Isis on a Giza stele of Prince Amenomopet, a prince of the 18th dynasty. She is found on the so-called Stele C found in the Sphinx Temple and which shows the Sphinx and Isis, wearing the Horns and Disk Crown and within a shrine, receiving offerings from the prince. The image is captioned, “Isis, the Great, the Divine Mother, Queen of the Gods, One in Heaven, Who Has No Equal, the Elder [daughter of] Atum.” Dating on the stele is controversial (so what else is new in Egyptology?), but if the 18th dynasty is accurate, then Isis and the Sphinx are being worshipped together at Giza by at least that time.
After this period, we have a number of other Giza inscriptions that include Isis. Some that list Her with other Deities, notably Osiris and Horus, some that indicate that She was being worshipped alone. So it would seem that there was an active cult of Isis at Giza from at least the 18th dynasty. There is also evidence of private devotion at the Temple of Isis; a number of votive plaques have been found there as well. (By the way, all of this has been gathered together by Christiane M. Zivie-Coche in her book Giza Au Premier Millenaire Autour du Temple D’Isis, Dames des Pyramides; I’m struggling through the French, so bear with me.)
We also have several fragments of columns, probably from the Ramessid era, but which were reused in the Third Intermediate Period by Pharaoh Amenemope, on which the king offers wine to Osiris and Isis, Who is identified specifically as Lady of the Pyramids. Because the column was reused, we can’t be sure whether that epithet goes back to the Ramessid period or only began being used in the 21st dynasty. But from then on, one of the Goddess’ epithets is Mistress or Lady of the Pyramids, which likely refers to Her function of protecting the pyramids and the Osiris-kings in them, and surely to Her power to safeguard their rebirths as well.
Another view of the Giza Temple of Isis
Interestingly, a graffito on Henutsen’s pyramid from (probably) Egypt’s late period says that the pyramid is the burial place of Isis. Oriented to the south, it faced the symbolic burial place of Osiris, Lord of Rostaw.
Much later, in the mid 1500s, writer André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) continued the tradition of Isis with the Sphinx writing that the Sphinx has “the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter”. (This refers to the Isis-Io connection; Io is the daughter of Inachus, the River God. Zeus fell in love with Io. You can read the whole story here.)
I’ve never been much interested in pyramids or mummies or pharoahs. It was always the Deities for me. Guess that’s why I missed this epithet of Isis previously. Just goes to show, there’s always something new to learn about Her.
It is finally spring. And here in the Pacific Northwest, we are having a classic one. Last weekend sunny and 70, this one wet and 50. For some reason (probably as I have been planting), this reminds me of vessels. So I hope you will enjoy this little excursion into some of the sacred and sacred-ish vessels associated with the Isis…
There is a very famous jug found in what is now Tooley Street in the Southwark borough of London. It doesn’t look like much; it’s about a foot high, just terracotta, with a graffito scratched on its surface. The jug is dated to the latter part of the 1st century CE.
It’s important because of what that graffito says. It says,”LONDINI AD FANVM ISIDIS,” that is, “To London at the temple of Isis”. Thus it confirms the existence of a temple of Isis in ancient London. One more reference to the temple has been uncovered locally as well. It’s a 3rd century CE altar (which had been used as part of a wall) with an inscription that states that the Isis temple had fallen down due to age, but had now been restored.
Together, these finds are the only certain evidence of an actual Isis temple anywhere in Roman Britain. (There are other artifacts—figurines, hairpins with Her image—that indicate Her presence in London, but nothing else about a temple.)
An Italian terracotta showing Isis with Harpocrates and Anubis. Her London devotees may have owned similar votive images.
The jug has been presumed to be a wine jug that may have belonged to a tavern near the temple, perhaps even a tavern dedicated to Isis. There is archeological precedent for taverns being located near temples as well as for being dedicated to Deities.
Other scholars have wondered whether the jug may have belonged to the temple itself. In particular, some have suggested that it may have been part of the feasting that would take place at temples by the religious associations who tended them. There is precedent for this, too.
Back in Egypt, demotic texts speak of “Days of Drinking” that became a term for the meetings of such groups. In Egypt, the groups were probably influenced by Greek symposia, meaning “drinking together,” and thiasoi, which were voluntary religious associations like our modern covens as well as larger organizations like the Fellowship of Isis. Yet there was native tradition, too. A scholar who studied this believes that the demotic name, Days of Drinking, may derive from one of the ancient Egyptian lunar festivals, which would no doubt include feasting and drinking as well.
A model of Londinium in the 1st century CE, from the London Museum
Such an association of Isiacs would not have been out of place in Roman London. We find them throughout the Empire. Archeologists have also found several other jugs inscribed with Isis’ name from other parts of the Empire.
I haven’t been able to find out whether anyone has actually tested residue from the Southwark jug to discover if it ever contained wine, but it sure looks like a classic wine jug—whether for use as part of the religious festivals at the temple or by the tavern next door.
The Southwark jug is, of course, not the only vessel with which Isis is connected. By the Late Period, She is especially associated with what is usually referred to as a situla, a container for sacred liquids. Many representations of Her show a sistrum in one hand and a situla in the other, some of these situlae conspicuously breast-shaped.
An Egyptian situla or washeb
The situla is not exclusive to the religion of Isis. From approximately the 19th dynasty onward, these small ritual buckets, washeb in Egyptian, were used to carry offerings of Nile water or milk in the cults of many Egyptian Deities. A text from Denderah that describes rites for Osiris specifically mentions a “situla of gold.” Situlae were usually decorated with scenes involving fertility, nourishment, or the cult of the specific Deity for Whom there were being used.
Scenes on the situale might include images of the nurturing Cow Goddess, images that suggest fertility, such as the plump Nile God or a Child God on a lotus, or sexual images such as the ithyphallic God Min. It seems clear that the breast or womb-like vessel was associated with the nurturing, fertile, and sexual aspects of the Divine—and thus very appropriate to Isis.
While the situla is spoutless, a different type of spouted vessel is also connected with Isis. It is the urnula or hydreion. It is from a later period and found in Isiac representations outside of Egypt.
Roman priestesses and priests of Isis; urnulas are carried by the priestesses on the right and left, situlae are carried by the priests
Nonetheless, it was always made to look Egyptian, decorated with Egyptian scenes and hieroglyphs and usually with a rearing cobra on the handle. The urnula was specifically for carrying sacred water, especially sacred Nile water. We don’t know for certain, but it most likely was used to pour libation offerings to the Goddess. In Apuleius’ novelized account of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, he says that the vessel “represented the Highest Deity.”
A charming vessel in the shape of mother and child; it held human milk, which was used in healing medicines
I have argued in Isis Magic, that Isis is one of the Great “Container” Goddesses, that is, one of the Great Mother Goddesses Who Contain All Things.
The concept of the Mother as Great Container is easy to understand. Like the human mother who contains the child and, once born, the milk to nourish it, the Great Mother contains all creatures and provides sustenance for them through the blessings of nature. Judging by the numerous gynomorphic vessels that have been found throughout all regions of the world, the concept of Great Mother as Container of All appears to have been common throughout the prehistoric world.
So, from a specific Isiac vessel, we can take our exploration of Isis to an expanded and more symbolic level. She is at once the Goddess celebrated in feasting and drinking together and She is the Lady of the Vessel and the Great Vessel Herself. She is the All-Containing One Who gives us life and nourishment, in life and in death.
“Great of Magic” is absolutely my favorite and most-used epithet of the Goddess. It is Her power name. It is the one that gives me tingles at the back of my neck when I say it. It is the one that invokes Her deepest core, Her magical heart, the ones that makes me want to kiss the ground before Her beautiful and fierce face. I have turned several Sakhmet sacred images into Werethekau for my altar with the addition of a serpent around Their shoulders. You’ll see why that works below.
“O, Isis, Great of Magic, deliver me from all bad, evil, and typhonic things…” —Ebers Papyrus, 1500 BCE
One of Isis’ most powerful epithets is “Great of Magic,” which you may also see translated as Great One of Magic, Great Sorceress, or Great Enchantress. In Egyptian, it is Weret Hekau or Werethekau. (“Wer” is “great” and “et” is the feminine ending. “Hekau” is the plural of “magic,” so you could also translate it as Great of Magics.)
Isis is not the only Goddess Who is called Great of Magic. Many of the Great Goddesses bear that epithet, too: Hathor, Sakhmet, Mut, Wadjet, among others. Gods are also Great of Magic, notably Set in the Pyramid Texts.
Werethekau from Karnak
There is also an independent Goddess named Werethekau. As so many Deities were, She was associated with the king, and especially during his coronation. There had been some doubt among Egyptologists about whether Werethekau was indeed a separate Goddess. But recently, Ahmed Mekawy Ouda of Cairo University has been doing a lot of work tracking Her down. He’s gathered references to a priesthood and temples for Her that seem quite clear. More on all that in a moment.
In addition to the Great of Magic Deities, there are objects called Great of Magic, especially objects associated with the king, such as the royal crowns. In the Pyramid Texts, the king goes before a very personified Red Crown:
“The Akhet’s door has been opened, its doorbolts have drawn back. He has come to you, Red Crown; he has come to you, Fiery One; he has come to you, Great One; he has come to you, Great of Magic—clean for you and fearful because of you . . . He has come to you, Great of Magic: he is Horus, encircled by the aegis of his eye, the Great of Magic.”
—Pyramid Texts of Unis, 153
A lioness-headed Werethekau from Karnak
Some amulets, including a vulture amulet, a cobra amulet, and, as in the example above, the Eye of Horus amulet are also called Great of Magic. So is the adze used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.
With all this great magic going for him or her, the king or queen becomes Great of Magic, too. King Pepi Neferkare is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic” (Pyramid Texts of Pepi, 315). Queen Neith is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic. You are the Great God” (Pyramid Texts of Neith, 225).
I wonder whether there might be some primordial connection between the Great of Magic royal crowns and the Great of Magic royal throne—Who is Iset, the Goddess Throne. Perhaps we can understand the accouterments of kingship as personified extensions of the Power, Divinity, and Magic of the Living Great Goddesses, which were empowered by Them in order to bestow upon the king his own power, divinity, and magic.
A cobra-headed Werethekau…also from Karnak. Lots of Great of Magics at Karnak, eh? Or should that be Greats of Magic?
The magic of the crowns is enhanced by the protective uraeus serpents often shown upon them. They’re not just snakes, of course; They’re Goddesses. Most often, the Uraeus Goddesses are Wadjet and Nekhbet or Isis and Nephthys, representing Lower and Upper Egypt. But Werethekau is a Uraeus Goddess, too. The uraei are also known as “Eyes” due to the similarity between the Egyptian word for “eye” (iret) and the word for “the doer” (iret)—for the Eyes of the Deities are the Divine Powers that go out to do things (much like the active and feminine Shakti power in Hinduism.)
The Pyramid Texts of King Merenre associate the Eyes with the crowns:
“You are the god who controls all the Gods, for the Eye has emerged in your head as the Nile Valley Great-of-Magic Crown, the Eye has emerged in your head as the Delta Great-of-Magic Crown, Horus has followed you and desired you, and you are apparent as the Dual King, in control of all the Gods and Their kas as well.”
—Pyramid Texts of Merenre, 52
The human-headed Cobra Goddess Werethekau nursing Tutankhamum
The Uraeus Goddesses or Eyes are powerful, holy cobras Who emit Light and spit Fire against the enemies of the king and the Deities. More about Isis as Uraeus Goddess here.
When Werethekau is an independent Goddess, She may have the body of a woman and head of a cobra, be in full cobra form, and we even have a few instances of the Goddess in full human form. Among Tutankhamun’s grave goods is a figure of Werethekau with a human head and cobra body nursing a child Tut.
She also has a lioness form. We know of a lionine Isis-Werethekau from the hypostyle hall at Karnak. A number of the Goddesses with a feline form—Sakhmet, Mut, Pakhet—were also known as Great of Magic, so we can understand that powerful magic has not only a protective and nurturing side, but also a fierce and raging one. Which seems about right if you ask me; magic can be very positive and healing or, if used unwisely, a real mess.
Isis-Werethekau from the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. You can read Her name in the hieroglyphs above Her. Click to enlarge.
So far, I haven’t tracked down the oldest reference to Isis as Great of Magic. Since She has always been a Goddess of great magical power, the association is ancient. Perhaps it has always been. Perhaps there’s something to my guess about The Great-of-Magic Throne. Or perhaps Professor Ouda will come to my rescue when I finally get a copy of his thesis.
In Ouda’s article outlining some of the references to Werethekau’s priesthood and temples, several of the extant references to Werethekau also tie-in Isis and Her Divine family.
For instance, on a stele of a chantress of Isis, the chantress is shown playing the sistrum and adoring Isis-Werethekau. The inscription reads, “adoring Werethekau, may They [Isis and Werethekau?] give life and health to the ka of the chantress of Isis, Ta-mut-neferet.”
Ta-mut-neferet holds the hand of a man identified as “the servant of Osiris.” Another stele calls Werethekau “Lady of the Palace” and is dedicated by a chantress of Osiris, Horus, and Isis. A man who was Second God’s Servant of Osiris, God’s Servant of Horus, and God’s Servant of Isis was also God’s Servant of Werethekau, Lady of the Palace.
Iset Werethekau in hieroglyphs…three different ways
Ouda also notes that Lady of the Palace may be Werethekau’s most common epithet. That is quite interesting in light of the fact that Lady of the Palace (or House or Temple) is the very meaning of Nephthys’ name. (Learn more about that here.) And of course, She, too, is called Great of Magic. Together, Isis and Nephthys are the Two Uraeus Goddesses and the Two Great of Magics.
So if the question is, “is Werethekau an independent Goddess, a personified object, or an epithet of other Deities?”, the answer is, “yes”. With the beautiful and, to my mind, admirable fluidity of the Egyptian Divine, She is all these things…and most especially, a powerful aspect of Isis, the Great Enchantress.
As we fast approach the time when Night and Day, Moon and Sun come into a brief and beautiful balance, I’d like to share this post about Isis’ lunar and solar natures.
Modern Pagans often think of Isis as a Moon Goddess. And, it’s true, in later periods of Her worship, She was indeed associated with the Moon—and, in fact, that’s how She entered the Western Esoteric Tradition. The Isis-Moon connection first started when Egypt came under Greek rule in the 3rd century BCE, following the conquest by Alexander the Great. To the Greeks, Goddesses were the lunar Deities, so as Isis made Her way into Greek culture and hearts, Her new devotees naturally associated Her with the Moon.
In Egypt, Osiris, Khons, Thoth, and I’ah were the Deities most associated with the Moon. Isis, for Her part, was connected with the star Sirius as far back as the Pyramid Texts; the star was said to be Her ba, or soul. Yet Isis is also linked with the Sun.
As the Sun was the image of one of the most important Gods to the ancient Egyptians, it should not be surprising to find that Isis, one of the most important Goddesses, also has strong solar connections. In some places—notably, Her famous temple at Philae—Isis was worshipped specifically as a Sun Goddess. Among Her solar epithets are Female Re (Re-et) and Female Horus (Horet).
Phoenix by the famous illustrator Boris Vallejo; looks like a rather Isiac phoenix to me!
Isis’ most common solar manifestation is as the Eye of Re, the Uraeus, the Cobra Goddess Who coils upon the Sun God’s brow to protect Him; and Who fights a constant cosmic battle against His great opponent, Apop (Gr. Apophis). An inscription at Philae calls Isis “Neseret [fiery]-serpent on the head of Horus-Re, Eye of Re, the Unique Goddess, Uraeus.” A hymn from Philae calls Her “Eye of Re who has no equal in heaven and on earth.” The Eye of Re is His active power. While He maintains His place in the sky, the solar power—the Eye Goddess—goes forth to manifest His Divine will. In this way, Isis and the other Uraeus Goddesses (such as Nephthys, Wadjet, and Tefnut) are similar to Shakti, the active, feminine Power related to the God Shiva in some Hindu sects. Isis is also one of the Deities Who travels with Re in His solar barque as it moves through the Otherworld. Again, Her function is to protect Him and help battle His foes.
A vintage illustration of Isis learning the name of Re by H. m. Brock.
Isis is also associated with the Sun God and the Sun in several of Her important myths. In the tale of Isis and Re, Isis gains power equal to Re’s by learning His secret name, first by poisoning, then by healing the ailing God. In another, with Her magical Words of Power, Isis stops the Boat of the Sun in the sky in order to receive aid for Her poisoned child, Horus.
But it was at Isis’ influential temple at Philae that She was most clearly worshipped as a Sun Goddess and even as the Sun itself. A Philae hymn to Isis praises Her saying, “You are the one who rises and dispels darkness, shining when traversing the primeval ocean, the Brilliant One in the celestial waters, traveling in the barque of Re.” An inscription on the first pylon (gate) at Philae says Isis is the “One Who illumines the Two Lands with Her radiance, and fills the earth with gold-dust.” (I absolutely adore this praise of Her!)
Like many other Egyptian Deities, Isis was often envisioned with immortal, golden, solar skin. Some of Her sacred images would have been covered with gold, earning Her, like Hathor, the epithets The Gold and the Golden One. A Philae hymn addresses Her, “O Golden One; Re, the possessor of the Two Lands, will never be far from you.” Some scholars believe that the holy of holies at Philae may have once been gold-leafed so that it always appeared filled with golden, solar light. O how I would love to have seen that.
At Her Philae temple, Isis is first of those in heaven: “Hail to you, Isis, Great of Magic, eldest in the womb of her mother, Nuet, Mighty in Heaven Before Re.” She is the “Sun Goddess in the circuit of the sun disk” and Her radiance outshines even that of Re.
From Her great temple at Philae, Isis’ identity as a Sun Goddess flowed back up the Nile to Her temples at Memphis and Isiopolis in the delta. From there, it entered into the Graeco-Roman culture in the famous aretalogies (self-statements) of Isis. From a papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, we learn that one of Isis’ many names is Name of the Sun and that She is responsible for the rising of the Sun: “Thou [Isis] bringest the sun from rising unto setting, and all the Gods are glad.” In an aretalogy from Kyme, in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I ordered the course of the sun and the moon.” And later in the same text She says, “I am in the rays of the sun” and “I inspect the courses of the sun.”
Throughout Her worship, Isis has always shown Her life giving, fructifying power in the image of the Sun. She is the Radiant Goddess, the Lady of Sunlight.
Now enjoy this lovely animation of Isis birthing the Sun by Lesley Keen:
