Facts about the Egyptian goddess Isis

Isis and her son, Horus

• Isis was the most important goddess in ancient Egyptian mythology.
• Isis was the wife and sister of Osiris and the mother of Horus.
• Isis was supreme in knowledge and magical power and together with Osiris, was the ruler of the underworld.
• She was responsible for bringing Osiris back to life after he had been murdered by his evil brother Seth.
• The worship of Isis began at Memphis and gradually spread throughout Egypt. By the 4th century B.C., it had reached Greece, where Isis became identified with the Greek goddesses Athena and Demeter.
• The worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire.
• Isis was revered as the goddess of nature, the universal mother, and the chief goddess of magic.
• Her cult remained active as late as the 6th century A.D.
• In art, Isis is pictured as a woman. often wearing a headdress of a solar disk set between two cow's horns. Her chief temple was on the lower Nile at the island of Philae. It is still standing beneath the waters of the Aswan Dam.