How long was isis worshipped

Temples had been built to her there since the sixth century B. Under Ptolemaic rule, aspects of Osiris and Apis were combined with traits of Greek gods, including Zeus and Hades, to create a syncretic deity, Serapis. Their center of worship was in Alexandria, a major commercial center under the Ptolemies. To Alexandrian merchants, Isis and Serapis became associated with prosperity in addition to the afterlife, healing, and fertility.

As the worship of Isis spread throughout the ancient world, artworks showing the goddess adapted to the cultures that were embracing her. Here, a Egyptian panel depicts Isis spreading her protective wings around a pharaoh of the sixth century B. Archaeological Civic Museum of Bologna, Italy. As Ptolemaic influence spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean, worship of Isis also traveled along the trade routes to the coastlines of modern-day Syria, Israel, and Turkey.

She became linked with regional deities. In Greece Isis was originally linked with Demeter, goddess of agriculture. In and around Lebanon she was associated with the Middle Eastern goddess Astarte. In Roman cities she was linked with Fortuna, goddess of luck, and Venus, goddess of love. The first- and second-century A. Here's how the Greek's changed the way we think about life after death. Temples to Isis were erected throughout the Mediterranean world. Among them was the Temple of Isis on Delos in the Aegean, a tiny, arid island that became an important trading post in the Ptolemaic era.

The impressive Doric Temple of Isis, whose ruins still stand on the island, was built in the early second century B. Roman merchants operating on Delos adopted the Isis cult they found there and took it back with them when they returned to Naples, Campania, Ostia, Rome, and Sicily. Isis had become an emblem of Ptolemaic hegemony; by the first century B. In addition to her traditional roles as wife, mother, healer, and protector of the dead, Isis was worshipped as the goddess of good fortune, the sea, and travel.

Sailors revered her: A festival held every spring became associated with Isis and was later known across the Roman world as Navigium Isidis. Many cities that depended on maritime trade, such as Pompeii, looked to Isis to defend them from the caprices of Neptune.

One of the best preserved temples of Isis can be found in Pompeii. Built in the first century A. By the first century B. Participation in these sects was highly secretive, and few details of their ceremonies survive. In the writings of Plutarch, a few can be found. Initiates donned colorful robes and shaved off their hair. During their initiations and other rituals, they carried the sistrum, a large rattle associated with the goddess. Historians remain unsure of certain details, such as how the religion was organized and if there was any hierarchy at all.

Rome tried to suppress the popular cult several times. In the first century B. When she and Mark Antony challenged the authority of Octavian the future Roman emperor Augustus , the cult of Isis became a symbol of foreign corruption.

Later emperors ordered her temples to be destroyed, but worship of Isis was reinstated in Rome in the first century A. The great double temple of Isis and Serapis near the Campus Martius in Rome became an important religious center. Isis: The Divine Mother. Isis was, in Egyptian mythology, goddess of fertility and motherhood. She was the sister-wife of Osiris, judge of the dead, and mother of Horus, god of day. She is described in ancient writings as having great magical skill, and she was represented as human in form though she was frequently described as wearing the horns of a cow, or as a winged woman see the image above.

Her symbols are the Ankh like a modified cross which represented life and the Star Sept which showed the coming of a new year as well as the flooding of the Nile for fertility. Beliefs and Rituals. Isis was believed to be powerful in the ways of magic, having the ability to create and destroy life with mere words.

She not only knew the words which needed to be spoken to cause certain things to occur, but was also able to use exact pronunciation and emphasis in order for the desired effect to occur. Isis was also the mother of Horus, the protector of the pharaoh. The most famous story of Isis begins when Seth, the jealous brother of Osiris, dismembered him and scattered the parts of his body throughout Egypt.

Isis was very important to the ancient Egyptians because she had so many different powers. She was both the protector of women and the bringer of magic. Isis began as a secondary figure to her husband Osiris, however after thousands of years of worship, she was transformed into the Queen of the Universe and the embodiment of Cosmic order.