Category Archives: Nut

Hymns to Isis of 10,000 Names from Denderah

One thing I learned from our Egyptian visit to the Great Temple of Hathor at Denderah, is just how very, very, very present Isis is in this entire temple complex.

Approaching the Temple of Hathor at Denderah

I knew that, just as Hathor has a small temple at Isis’ great Philae sanctuary, so Isis had a small temple at Hathor’s great sanctuary at Denderah. But I didn’t know how present Isis is within Hathor’s temple itself.

The remains of the Isis temple at Denderah

So, today I’d like to share with you some of the praises and epithets of Isis found within the great Hathor temple. They can be used and/or adapted through your own creativity for ritual use. The translations come from Egyptologist Sylvie Cauville’s Dendara: Hymnes à Hathor et à Isis. So they are my English translations (with help from Google Translate) of her French translations of the hieroglyphs. I’m awaiting an interlibrary loan of her book on all the texts from Isis’ small temple at Denderah. I’ll share those with you in the future.

But for today, let’s look at some of the ways Isis was understood at Denderah. Since most of the remains at Denderah are Ptolemaic, we won’t be surprised to find Isis expressing Herself there in many of Her ten thousand names. Here’s an example:

Isis the Great, Mother of the God, Mistress of the Birth Mound, Who takes Her place in Denderah, Lady of the Beginning of the Year, Queen of Messengers, Who appears at the New Year to open the Beautiful Year. [She is] Amunet (the Goddess counterpart of Amun) at Thebes, Menhit (a Lioness Goddess) in Heliopolis, Renpet (“Year”) is Your name in Memphis, Sothis (Sopdet, the Star Goddess) in Elephantine, Hededyt (a Scorpion Goddess) in Edfu, the Venerable Vulture (the Goddess Nekhbet), the ruler of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen), the Feminine Heliopolitan One in Denderah, Daughter of Nuet, brought into the world in the Birth Mound on the beautiful day of the Child-in-His-Nest, the One Who takes flight again towards the sky; Heqet (the Frog Goddess) in Abydos, Seshat (the Scribe Goddess) in Hermopolis, Djedet (“Word” or “Great Word,” Djedet Weret) is Your name in Busiris, the Mysterious One in Bubastis, Ipyt (a Hippopotamus Fertility Goddess) in Pe, Depet (“the One of Dep”) in Dep, Neith in Sais, Wadjet in Nebecheh (the location of a temple of Wadjet), Hathor in all the land. She is the One Who dwells in every city and in every nome with Her son Horus and Her brother Osiris.

Those of you who have seen the Oxyrhynchus aretalogy of Isis will recognize this format: give Her name and then the place in which She is called by that name (or vice versa).

“Isis of 10,000 Names” from the Isis Oracle; art by Jim Manton

On one of the pylon doorways at Denderah, where both Goddesses are invoked, we learn this of Isis’ power:

She is the Sovereign of the Palace, the Ruler, the Mistress of Writing. She announces what will happen in the future. Life is in Her hand, health is in Her fist, one does not oppose what comes from Her mouth. She takes care of the one who is not unfaithful to Her and defends the one She loves on the day of the “fight in the arena” (I assume this means during challenging times; but I supposed it could be something more specific, too). She is the irreproachable protector of those who have nothing and those who have everything. What She conceives happens forever. She comforts the unfortunate with Her word at the closing gate. She is Seshat the Great, the Primordial, the First Who Inaugurated Writing, the First Who is Brought into the World Among the Goddesses.

On the doors of the “Mysterious Corridor,” Isis is praised as the Powerful One. Re is said to shine in the horizon (akhet) when He sees Her and human beings come to Her to make Her heart joyful. In the Isis Chapel within the Hathor temple, She is called by many of the titles we have already seen, but She is also the Queen of Egypt in its Entirety, the Great One in Heaven, the Powerful One on Earth, the Primordial One Who Created the First Time (Zep Tepi) and All Good Things—which She shares with those She loves. She “dispenses the Commandments in the places of worship.” What must happen “happens when You [Isis] order it.” She is “excellent and beautiful.” She is “the Female Ibis Without Her Equal, the Mistress of Writing, the Sovereign of the Library.” She is the ruler of the orb of the sun and of the stars. As Sothis, She is the One Who Brings the Flood to “create life for the living.” She is the Eye of Re and the Unique Uraeus serpent.

Isis of Corinth by Stuart Littlejohn; purchase a copy here; I have my copy, just gotta get it framed

She is also called Horet, the Female Horus. Her favors to Her devotees are great as is Her love. She is the Hand of God with inexhaustible benevolence. And Her true name is Isis (but also The Golden). This is very reminiscent of Apuleius’ aretalogy of Isis in which the Goddess lists many of the names by which human beings know Her, but finally states that Her true name is Queen Isis.

Quite a few of the Isiac hymns in the Denderah temple repeat many of the epithets we’ve already seen, so I’m trying to pick out the ones I find interesting and that I think you may also find interesting.

For instance, epithets from the Denderah Chapel of Water and Chapel of the Crown call Isis the Great Oracle Who Arrived at the Beginning and the Oracle Who Announces What Will Happen in the Future. These would be perfect epithets to use when reading Tarot or using another divination system under Her auspices. The Chapel of Water also says that She makes the Inundation flow to “invigorate the hearts of the Guardian Gods;” so another protective function. Her Ka is praised and She is called the Living Ba. She is the Lady of East, South, West, and North.

Isis the Magician, according to WordPress AI

In the Chamber of Fabrics, Isis is identified with Tayet, the Weaving Goddess. The text says that the Divine Fabric is made for Her Ka and that She is Mistress of the White, Green, Purple/Blue, and Red fabrics.

One of the things especially celebrated at Denderah is the birth of Isis. Her birth is connected to the epagomenal days when She rises as Sirius before the sun to mark the New Year.

In the Chapel of the Sistrum, it is said that Isis “took possession of the royal office even before She left the womb; She ruled the throne from Her swaddling clothes.” I’m guessing we’ll learn more about Her birth when I get that interlibrary loan of the texts from the small Temple of Isis.

Isis the Magician, according to Roman-era Egypt

On the exterior temple walls, Isis is said to be born “in the form of a black-haired woman, full of life, Sovereign of the Ennead, Ruler of Magic.” More of Her ten thousand names are added in the pronaos of the temple: She is Amunet, Menhit, Renpet, Sothis, Nekhbet, Tanenet (a Goddess of brewing and childbirth), Isis, Seshat, Heqet, and Wadjet. She is also the One Who Loves the Embrace, the Mistress of Life, Tayet, She Who Hears Everything, the Mysterious, Pyt (possibly a variation or misspelling of Ipyt), Depet, Neith, Khensyt (a Goddess of the royal crown), and Isis in every nome. She is the Mistress of Offerings, the Feminine Disk (of the sun), Mistress of Bread, Who Prepares Beer, and Lady of Exultation and Joy. She is the One Who is Rejuvenated in the Faiyum, Mistress of Life in Metenou (couldn’t find out where that is). In Mendes, She is the One Who Speaks. In Busiris, She is the One Who Hears Everything. And She is still The Mysterious in Bubastis.

The pronaos also notes that on the birthday of Isis, joy breaks out in Denderah and in Edfu. (Remember that these two temples are connected by the love connection between Hathor and Horus.) Heavenly Nuet gives birth to Isis—the Scholar for the Ennead—so that She may give birth to Horus the Avenger. The text says that Isis “was initiated into Wisdom as the Great One” and that the Goddesses come to see Her birth, wearing the menat-necklace and bearing the sistrum, “to appease the heart of The Magician (that is, Isis).”

That’s a lot of (hopefully) new and interesting epithets to work with for today. Any one of these epithets of Isis or Her identifications with other Goddesses would be a worthy subject for invocation and meditation.

The Great Mother & Her Mother & Her Mother’s Mother

Lately, I am thinking about the stars.

With our hot weather, the night skies are clear now, so when I look up, I can see the body of beautiful, star-filled Nuet, the mother of Isis. A little while ago, a friend of this blog asked a very interesting question about Her…and Her. “How we can reconcile the idea that Isis is both Mother of All with the idea that Isis has a mother Herself,” they asked.

Isis the Mother and Her Holy Child Horus — Isis the Mother

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.

Erik Hornung’s Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, the One and the Many is one 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.

Atum arises from the Nun, the primordial waters of No-Thing-Ness

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. She is usually represented anthropomorphically, through, and not as a disembodied hand, and She is said to be the Grandmother of All the Gods.

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—soul or manifestation—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.”

The primordiality and uniqueness 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, “Thou, Being One, Art All, Goddess Isis.”

So now we have ancient attestations both of Isis’ ancient and original one-ness and of Her generation from Her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. How do we resolve it?

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 worshipers 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, 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…and a mother’s mother…and?

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 through 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.

Isis is all things and all things are Isis

The Great Mother, Her Mother, and Her Mother’s Mother

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?

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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?

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, this lovely illustration by Byam Shaw, 1914, captures something of Nuet and one of Her Holy Children — 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.

The Goddess of Willendorf

In Search of the Feminine Divine

Category Archives: Nut

Hymns to Isis of 10,000 Names from Denderah

The Great Mother & Her Mother & Her Mother’s Mother

The Great Mother, Her Mother, and Her Mother’s Mother

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