Isis was the great goddess of ancient Egypt — the supreme mistress of magic, the devoted wife who gathered and resurrected her murdered husband Osiris, the protective mother of Horus, and the goddess whose love, cunning and power made her one of the most beloved and widely worshipped deities of the entire ancient world. She is the very ideal of the loving wife and mother, and the most powerful sorceress among the gods.
The Goddess of Magic and Devotion
Isis (Egyptian Aset) was a daughter of the earth-god Geb and sky-goddess Nut, the sister and wife of Osiris, and the sister of Set and Nephthys. Above all she was the mistress of magic (heka) — the most cunning and powerful of all the deities in the working of spells, words of power and enchantment. So great was her magic that she even gained power over the sun-god Ra himself: by a clever trick (creating a serpent to poison him, then offering to heal him only if he revealed his secret name), she learned Ra's hidden true name and thereby acquired a portion of his supreme power. She was depicted as a woman wearing a throne-shaped headdress (her name means “throne”), or the sun-disc between cow's horns, often with great protective wings.
The Gathering of Osiris
Isis's greatest deed was the resurrection of her murdered husband. When Set killed Osiris and scattered his dismembered body across Egypt, it was Isis who, with her sister Nephthys, searched all the land in grief and gathered the pieces of her husband. By her unmatched magic she bound the body together, and — transforming herself into a kite (a bird of prey) — she hovered over the revived Osiris and conceived their son Horus. Through her love, devotion and magic, Isis accomplished the impossible: she brought her husband back from death, made him whole, and conceived the heir who would avenge him. This act made her the goddess of resurrection and the model of the faithful, all-powerful wife.
The Mother of Horus
After Osiris descended to rule the underworld, Isis hid in the marshes of the Nile Delta and there secretly raised her son Horus, protecting him from the murderous Set, who sought to kill the rightful heir. She nursed and shielded the child through countless dangers — from scorpions, serpents and Set's schemes — using her magic to heal and protect him, until Horus grew strong enough to challenge Set for the throne of Egypt. The image of Isis nursing the infant Horus on her lap became one of the most iconic and enduring in all of religious art. As the divine mother who protected her child against all dangers, Isis was the great protectress, invoked by mothers and the sick throughout Egypt.
The Beloved Goddess of the World
Isis became, in time, far more than an Egyptian goddess. Her cult spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the Roman Empire, where she was worshipped as a universal mother-goddess and saviour, the “goddess of ten thousand names,” with temples from Egypt to Britain. Her devotion, her power, her grief and her triumph spoke to people across cultures, and she became one of the most beloved deities of the entire ancient world. Isis endures as the supreme goddess of Egyptian myth — the mistress of magic, the resurrector of Osiris, the protective mother of Horus, the ideal of love and devotion — a goddess whose power was matched only by her love, and whose worship outlasted the civilisation that bore her.
By her magic she learned the secret name of the sun and gathered her murdered husband from death itself — the great goddess whose love was as boundless as her power.