When was isis worshipped

Two great Festivals are dedicated to Isis. The first was celebrated on the Vernal Equinox, to celebrate the return of life to the world around March This paled to the second celebration which usually started on October 31 and lasted through November 3. During this four day period a passion play was acted out over the death of Osiris and the magic of Isis returning him to life.

During the first day, actors would impersonate Isis and her son Horus as well as various other gods as they searched across the world for the 14 body parts of Osiris. The Second and Third days showed the reassembly and rebirth of Osiris and the fourth day was a wild rejoicing over the success of Isis and the coming of the newly immortal Osiris. Isis, when she attached herself to Osiris, later known as Sarapis the god of the dead, became involved in what happens to someone in the underworld.

Later, as the religion progressed, she became more entwined in death as the mourner and widow of Osiris. There is a painting of a scene, in Pompeii, of Isis finding the body of Osiris and mourning his dead body. Isis is also a goddess of healing, she discovered the elixir of life.

Any of her worshippers would then perchance have a shot at getting that if they were devout enough. Much of the spread of Isis is from merchants, sailors, and the trade of slaves from Egypt [3]. The goddess Isis was popular among the Greeks for many reasons but a main reasons that her cult spread so far was that she was the goddess to pray for when you want a safe journey overseas.

People would pray to her before they left and again when they ended their journey. This goddess that was a protector then of sailors and merchants was very popular because so much of the Greek economy, food base, and people relied on seafaring. This basically means that the Romans liked this cult because it supported the rulers position that there were people beyond normal human conventions and status.

There was another reason that Isis was such a popular cult and spread in the Mediterranean world, Isis as well as some other foreign gods had ideals that suggested that every person had their place in the world and they reveled in the functioning and non-chaotic universe. The cult of Isis spread and was successful originally because of the relationship that Isis and Sarapis had, the way that the two gods went together and encompassed most of what people wanted out of a deity.

Together they ruled over life, death, fate, the seas, the heart, justice, everything and that was a big pull for people in the Greco-Roman world who had hundreds of other gods to worship to. Isis was the mother goddess, the more powerful queen of heaven [5]. Isis was a universal goddess, she reigned as a queen in heaven and was a maternal life force on earth.

This was a main theme for the cult of Isis, a powerful mother-like goddess who ruled over most everything. Inscriptions show that she had a large presence in Delphi, Eleusis, and Delos [6]. She won the love and loyalty of innumerable men and women as her wisdom was without measure and had healing abilities for the sick. Isis suckled the pharos of Egypt to life, she healed the sick, she was regarded as the source of all things that lived.

She was the authority on animal worship in Egypt, where animals were considered sacred and she provided healing for those who needed it. Another theme of Isis was redemption. She provided those who had lived bad lives a way out, by being initiated into the mysteries and living their lives through her she would give them redemption for their bad lives.

Isis was an important goddess for the women in the Greco-Roman world because she represented a mother. She was the mother goddess, was thought to be the mother of pharos in Egypt [7], and had established herself as the patron of the female sex.

She was a savior goddess, redemption could happen by participating and being initiated into her mysteries. He follows and worships her blindly, all this because she promised him redemption and that she would look after him as a human. Women seem to find great comfort in the redemption aspect of Isis, many men do not associate religion with morality but the women seem to take more stock in it.

Another reason that women were drawn to Isis is because she provided them with acceptable ways to have emotional outlets. This anger was often directed toward men who had wronged a woman, women still utilized the emotional outlets for they had often done wrong but it was less often that they would be outwardly punished like the men.

Isis is also viewed as a calm and spiritual goddess who ruled over love and the ways of the heart. Her protection of women and her support of their love are all reasons that women are drawn to Isis over some of the other deities that they worship. Isis was an attractive cult for women in the Greek world as we can see, their participation in the cult, however, was not as frequent as we might believe. In inscriptions on the cult of Isis and those who worship it there was only that mentioned women [10].

However there were more women who participated in the cult outside of Greece, in Asia and Africa, the women were more prominent in their roles in the ritual sacrifices, as shown by their literature and writing. This could be because when Isis and Sarapis first came to the Greek world, Sarapis was more popular. Lending to more priests than priestesses [11]. In the Roman empire, the amount of female priestess in the Isis cult was many.

Those paintings show women preforming important ritualistic and sacrificial duties. One such painting depicts a group of women dressed in black, wearing Greek clothing but have Egyptian features [12]. This was a festival that women actively participated in. Though this festival was public, the mourners who were initiates seemed to be more affected by the mourning than simple bystanders [13].

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.

Its columns are estimated to have been 21 meters 70 feet high. A fragment of its cornice, in the garden of the Palazzo Colonna, weighs tons. It is the largest fragment of ancient Rome. National Museum of Afghanistan inv. Another is in the Brooklyn Museum. A statuette of Harpocrates was found in Sirkap, Pakistan. It is today is the National Museum of Pakistan, inv. A small figure of Harpocrates was found in Uzbekistan, in the Farghana Valley.

Figurines were found in Khotan, Xinjiang, China. Serapis and Harpocrates. And Harpocrates riding a horse found in Kara-Khoja, Tufan. Alexander the Great conquest went as far as Afghanistan. The book of the dead or Going forth by day, University of Chicago Press , From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt.

Oxford University Press, Isis, Dame des flots. Brill, Hymns to Isis in her temple at Philae. Brandeis University Press, Hanover and London, American Journal of Archaeology, Apr. Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide. University of California Press, East and West, March-June , Vol.