Isis and Osiris
Isis
• Sister and wife to
Osiris
• The mother goddess:
creation of living
things/new life
• Skilled in magic
• Athena/Persephone/
Demeter
Osiris
• God of the harvest/
Nile flooding
• God of the
dead/living
• Hades/Dionysus/
Serapis
Isis and Osiris
• Set, Isis and
Osiris are
brothers and
sisters.
• Set plots to kill
Osiris with a
band of other
Egyptians
• Osiris’ coffin thrown into the Nile
• Isis
searches for
Osiris.
• She learns
the coffin
was
deposited in
a very large
tree
• The local king
admired the tree
and used it for a
pillar in his home.
• Isis requests for
the pillar to be
opened.
• Sad, she returns to
Egypt with the corpse.
• Set discovers the body.
• Dismembers it.
• Scatters it
• Isis searches for
Osiris
• He returns from
the dead.
• Their son, Horus,
plots to revenge
his father’s
death.
The Cult of Isis
• Popular among lower class women and
slaves
• Roman but exotic and alien
• Mysteries kept a secret (meditation, rites)
• The cult in Rome restricted by the Senate
• Augustus angered by the presence of cult
members