Glencairn Museum News | Number 8, 2020
Bronze statuette of the goddess Isis suckling her child, Horus (Glencairn Museum E1164).
The family unit was central to the organization of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Throughout Egypt, in temples large and small, gods were grouped into triads of a father, mother and child. In this way, the divine sphere mirrored the social structure of Egyptian society in which marriage and the production of children was the usual practice (see also “The Goddess Taweret: Protector of Mothers and Children,” Glencairn Museum News No. 9, 2014).
The city of Memphis, Egypt’s earliest capital and an important religious and administrative center, was under the protection of the Memphite triad consisting of Ptah, a creator god and the patron of craftsmen, Sekhmet, the warlike leonine goddess, and Nefertem, their child, a god associated with perfume (Figure 1). In the south, at the great city of Thebes (modern Luxor), the Theban triad was made up of Amun, another of Egypt’s many creator gods, and his wife Mut, who like Sekhmet could also have a leonine appearance, while Khonsu, the moon god, held the position of child in this divine family grouping (Figure 2).
Figure 1: The members of the Memphite Triad pictured on the Great Harris Papyrus (EA9999,43). Image © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 2: The members of the Theban Triad pictured on the Great Harris Papyrus (EA9999,2). Image © The Trustees of the British Museum.
The Egyptian triad par excellence was that of Osiris, Isis and Horus (Figure 3). According to Egyptian mythology, Osiris and Isis were the siblings of Seth and Nephthys. Osiris was king of Egypt, and his brother Seth was jealous of Osiris’ position and plotted to kill him and take the throne. Versions of the myth vary in some of the details, but we are told that Seth was successful in murdering his brother and dismembering him. Isis and her sister Nephthys searched long and hard to locate all of the pieces of Osiris’ body. By means of her great magic, and with the assistance of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming, Isis was able to reassemble and reanimate her husband long enough to be able to conceive a child with him. Osiris then passed into the afterlife and became the king of the dead, just as he had been king on earth (Figure 4). Their child, Horus, was destined for his father’s throne.
Figure 3: The family grouping of Osiris, Isis and their son Horus pictured at the top of the stela of Shuamay (40-19-1). Image courtesy of the Penn Museum.
Figure 4: Bronze statuette of the god Osiris (Glencairn Museum E74).
This ascent to the throne was not without peril. Horus’ jealous uncle still wanted the throne for himself and was a threat to the young child. Myths tell us that Isis took her child into hiding in the Nile Delta in order to protect him from Seth (Figure 5). Other texts describe battles—both physical and verbal—that took place between Horus and Seth. One tale, known as The Contendings of Horus and Seth, dates to the New Kingdom; it describes in a rather satirical way how these two gods fought for a period of eighty years. The story is set partially in a divine courtroom with various deities siding with one god or the other as they made their claim to the throne. The text is filled with insults, threats, and almost comical violence. Isis appears in the text as a defender of her son, and in one episode of the story Horus actually beheads his mother in anger. They reconcile, and she ultimately aids him in entrapping his uncle in one of the many skirmishes between those two gods.
Figure 5: A fragmentary image of Isis and Horus hiding in marshes of the Nile Delta (30.8.239). Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915.
Figure 6: The name Isis in hieroglyphs. “Isis” (or one containing the name Isis) was also a common name among ancient Egyptian women.
Ultimately, Horus vanquishes Seth and takes the throne of his father, becoming King of Egypt. Every pharaoh who ruled Egypt was equated with Horus while on the throne, and was believed to become one with Osiris after death. But let’s not forget that in order for all of that to happen, Horus’ mother, Isis, had to fiercely safeguard her son. Her unflagging protection makes her Egypt’s premiere mother goddess.
Figure 7: Wooden statues of Isis and Nephthys as mourners. Note the symbols for their names atop their heads (12.182.23a, 12.182.23b). Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1912.
Figure 8: Amulet showing Isis, Horus, and Nephthys (Glencairn Museum E163).
In Egyptian art, Isis is usually represented as a human female. Often the hieroglyph for her name is shown atop her head. The hieroglyph that spells her name is that of a seat or throne (Figure 6). Her sister Nephthys is similarly portrayed, with her name also appearing on her head (Figure 7). When these two goddesses appear together, these headdresses are often all that distinguish them (Figure 8). Other headgear that Isis can be shown wearing is the horned sun disk, a crown she shares with the goddess Hathor (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Bronze statuette of the goddess Isis and her child, Horus (Glencairn Museum E1164). Isis wears the horned sun disk crown. Horus has the sidelock of youth indicating his young age.
Figure 10: A black kite, a bird of prey common in Egypt. Photo by Andreas Trepte: www.avi-fauna.info.
Many Egyptian deities can take animal forms, and Isis is no exception. She can appear in the form of a kite, a small bird of prey common in Egypt (Figure 10). One of the most famous representations of the revivification of Osiris appears on the walls of the Seti Temple at Abydos. In this scene, Osiris lies upon a funerary bier, and Isis, in the form of this bird, hovers above him at the moment of the conception of their child, Horus (Figure 11). Perhaps because of this association with the kite, Isis can also be shown as a human female with feathered wings below her outstretched arms (Figure 12).
Figure 11: Scene of the conception of Horus from the temple of Seti I at Abydos. Photo courtesy of Olaf Tausch. ©2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Figure 12: Statue of Isis protecting Osiris within her wings (22.199). Image courtesy of The Walters Art Museum.
Another animal form Isis can take is that of a snake with a human head. There were a number of female serpent deities in Egypt. Isis has close connections with one of these snake goddesses, Renenutet, a deity associated with good fortune and the harvest. Depictions of Isis and the god Serapis (a deity who combines elements of the god Osiris and the Apis bull), dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, often show these deities with human heads and serpent bodies (Figure 13).
Figure 13: Terracotta of Isis with a serpent tail (M.80.202.222). Image courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Jerome F. Snyder.
Figure 14: Isis and Nephthys are depicted as mourners on this Demotic funerary stela (E2983). Image courtesy of the Penn Museum.
Isis and her sister Nephthys play an important role in Egyptian funerary religion. Because of their involvement with the death, mummification and reanimation of Osiris, these two goddesses are frequently depicted as mourners kneeling on either side of the mummy atop a funerary bed (Figure 14). A text known as the Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys records their pleas for their brother Osiris to return to life. This text became part of funerary rituals in which the deceased was identified with Osiris and, like this god, was entreated to come back to life in the afterlife. Part of the text reads as follows:
My heart mourns for you, my eyes seek you,
I search for you to see you!
Come to your beloved, come to your beloved!
Wennefer [another name for Osiris], justified, come to your sister!
Come to your wife, come to your wife,
Weary-hearted, come to your house-mistress!
I am your sister by your mother,
You shall not leave me!
Gods and men look for you,
Weep for you together.
(P. Berlin 3008, translation by R.O. Faulkner)
A further association with funerary religion is Isis’s role as protector of one of the four sons of Horus, the deities who protected the internal organs removed during the mummification process and placed in containers known as canopic jars (Figure 15a-b). The heads of the gods Hapy, Imsety, Qebehsenuef and Duamutef decorated the lids of these containers. Each of these gods was protected by a goddess. Isis watched over Imsety, the human-headed god, while Nephthys, Neith and Selket guarded the others.
Figure 15a: A set of canopic jars (see also Figure 15b). Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915.
Figure 15b: A closeup of the jar with the head of Imsety (see also Figure 15a). The text on this jar mentions the goddess Isis, and probably contained the mummified liver of the deceased (30.8.125a, b) .Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915.
In addition to amulets that depict Isis in human form, which were very popular (Figure 16), another amuletic form associated with this goddess is known as the tyet amulet, or the Isis knot. This object resembles the shape of the well-known ankh symbol for “life,” but rather than having “arms” that project at a perpendicular angle, the arms of the tyet droop downwards (Figure 17). This object may represent something made of fiber like a tied ribbon or girdle-like belt, or it may have connections with menstruation. Tyet amulets are frequently made of carnelian, or rendered in a reddish color.
Figure 16: A selection of faience Isis amulets in the collection of Glencairn Museum.
Figure 17: A red jasper tyet (Isis knot) amulet found at the site of Abydos (00.4.39). Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Egypt Exploration Fund, 1900.
Isis is perhaps the best known of all Egyptian goddesses, and her cult was extremely long lived and widespread. To give some sense of the geographical spread of her worship outside of Egypt, shrines dedicated to Isis have been found at Pompeii in Italy, at Meroë in Nubia (modern Sudan) to Egypt’s south, and at Ephesus in Turkey (Figure 18). Evidence also suggests that there was a shrine to her in Roman Britain. No doubt merchants, traders, and sailors coming in and out of Egypt’s Mediterranean port cities and traveling south along the Nile aided in the spread of her worship beyond the borders of Egypt. When Egypt became Christianized under the Roman emperors, the temple of Isis at Philae was one of the last holdouts of “pagan” worship. Priests of Isis there maintained her cult longer than those of other gods at temples elsewhere in Egypt, lasting at Philae until about the 5th century CE (Figure 19).
Figure 18: This floor mosaic, found north of Rome, depicts a priest making an offering to a goddess identified as Isis (45.16.2). Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1945.
Figure 19: A view of the Temple of Isis at Philae. Photo courtesy of Olaf Tausch. ©2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Turning to the question of the arrival of Christianity in Egypt, some scholars have suggested that one of the reasons for its acceptance was the assimilation of the iconography of some popular Egyptian deities and figures into Christian belief. For example, Saint George was popular among the early Christians in Egypt, and his iconography as the slayer of the dragon is similar to that of images of Horus spearing his rival, Seth, or trampling on crocodiles as seen on the magical stelae known as Horus Cippi (Figures 20-21).
Figure 20: Relief of the god Horus on horseback. © 1987 RMN / Les frères Chuzeville.
Figure 21: A Horus-on-the-Crocodiles Cippus stela (Glencairn Museum E427).
Figure 22: The Romanesque statue of Mary and the Christ Child (Glencairn Museum 12.SP.04).
Certainly, one can suggest that images of Mary and the child Jesus resemble images of Isis and the young Horus. With that in mind, let’s turn to another object in Glencairn’s collection that also speaks to a mother’s powerful love for her child. Created in the latter part of the 12th century CE, the Romanesque statue of Mary and the Christ Child depicts this pair in a pose similar to many representations of Isis and Horus (Figure 22). Like Isis, Mary sits on a throne, and she holds the young Jesus on her lap. This statue was discussed in a 2011 article in Glencairn Museum News, in which the author describes this composition as an example of the Throne of Wisdom—a visualization of the idea of the Incarnation by which Jesus Christ was born in human form, but held a divine nature. According to the article, “Mary is here presented as both the mother of God, holding the child on her lap, and as a throne for the divine wisdom, which is Jesus himself. This is a royal image of Christ enthroned with Mary, who was a symbol of the church. He is head of the institution she personifies.” (Interestingly, as noted above, the name Isis in Egyptian means “seat” or “throne.”)
Statues such as this one of Mary and the Christ child were often set up in churches or shrines, or were carried in processions where the faithful would have access to them. Some were reliquaries—containers that held personal objects connected to a saint. These statues were objects of devotion; they were not worshipped, but offered the devout a tangible means to reflect on their relationship with the divine, providing a visual reminder of these holy beings. Prayers might be offered before the statue, but not to the statue itself.
Bronze votive statues of Isis and Horus were similarly used by the ancient Egyptians. Many of these small statues are identified as votives, or gifts, dedicated by pilgrims at temples or shrines in thanksgiving for prayers answered. The Egyptians did not worship these small statues, but rather created them to memorialize the deities they venerated.
Figure 23: Statuette of Isis and Horus now on exhibit in the community spotlight gallery at the Penn Museum (40-19-2). Image courtesy of the Penn Museum.
These female figures, Isis and Mary, are mothers who protect and safeguard their sons. Both the ancient Egyptian religion and the Christian faith feature the exceptional nature of their sons, and the roles they were destined to fulfil in each religious tradition.
Jennifer Houser Wegner, PhD
Associate Curator, Egyptian Section
Penn Museum, University of Pennsylvania
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