Who is isis married to

Known for her magic, her beneficent power encompassed both daily life and the afterlife. As Egyptian notions of the afterlife became more democratic, she was considered the protector of all the dead across Egyptian society, not just the pharaohs and their families at the top. Egyptian women regarded her as the model mother and wife. Her reputation as one of the warmest and most humane of the gods would later win hearts outside Egypt.

When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in B. See ancient Egypt's stunning, lifelike mummy portraits. This dynasty, the so-called Ptolemies, would continue to unite the new Macedon elite with the local Egyptian population through faith.

Temples had been built to her there since the sixth century B. Under Ptolemaic rule, aspects of Osiris and Apis were combined with traits of Greek gods, including Zeus and Hades, to create a syncretic deity, Serapis. Their center of worship was in Alexandria, a major commercial center under the Ptolemies. To Alexandrian merchants, Isis and Serapis became associated with prosperity in addition to the afterlife, healing, and fertility.

As the worship of Isis spread throughout the ancient world, artworks showing the goddess adapted to the cultures that were embracing her. Here, a Egyptian panel depicts Isis spreading her protective wings around a pharaoh of the sixth century B. Archaeological Civic Museum of Bologna, Italy. 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. Their other siblings, Seth and Nephthys , were also married to one another. Osiris and Seth had fallen out several times, although there are different versions as to what was behind it. One version says Osiris kicked Seth, while another says Osiris had an affair with Nephthys.

Whatever the cause, Seth got his revenge by chopping up Osiris into 42 pieces and scattering them across the whole of Egypt. Seth then usurped the throne of Egypt for himself. The childless Isis was distressed by the killing of her husband. Along with her sister Nephthys, she sought high and low for his body parts.

She put them back together with the help of two Egyptian gods of the dead, Anubis and Thoth. They wrapped him up like a mummy. Then she conceived a son with the restored corpse, who she named Horus. As an infant, noxious animals like snakes and scorpions presented a constant threat.

Isis used magical spells to cure him of their poison. Motherhood was an important role for ancient Egyptian women. Real life children in ancient Egypt faced similar threats from snakes and scorpions. In order to cure or protect children from their poison, ancient mothers used small stelae known as Horus cippi.

These artifacts depicted Horus the child holding and standing on dangerous animals. The spells inscribed on them invoke the story of Horus being stung by a scorpion. Mothers would pour water over these stelae while reciting the spells and use the water to heal their children.

Isis raised Horus with hatred towards his uncle Seth and knowledge that he was the rightful ruler of the land. As an adult, he took his case before the ennead, a tribunal of nine Egyptian gods. One day, disaster struck. Seth , the god of disorder, murdered his brother Osiris, the god of order. Seth was furious because his wife, Nephthys , had conceived a child, named Anubis , by Osiris.

The murder happened at a banquet when Seth invited guests to lie down in a coffin he had made for the king. Several guests tried unsuccessfully. When Osiris climbed in, Seth and his conspirators nailed down the lid, weighed the coffin down with lead and cast it into the Nile. This happened in July when the waters of the Nile were rising. Nun the primeval sea took Osiris away to hide his secrets.

The death of Osiris threw the cosmos into chaos and made the gods weep. Isis, greatly distraught, wandered throughout the land in search of her husband, asking everyone if they had seen him.

Through divine revelation, Isis found out that the coffin had drifted down to the sea and washed ashore at Byblos, in Phoenicia. A tamarisk tree had grown up around the coffin, completely enclosing it in its trunk.

When Isis found the tree, she released the coffin from it and shipped it back to Egypt. While grieving over her husband's body, she transformed herself into a kite. As she flew over the body, she miraculously conceived a child. One day, Seth discovered Osiris's coffin and dismembered his body into fourteen parts that he scattered throughout the land. Isis managed to find all the parts, except the phallus, which she reconstituted. Isis was also the mother of Horus, the protector of the pharaoh.

The most famous story of Isis begins when Seth, the jealous brother of Osiris, dismembered him and scattered the parts of his body throughout Egypt. Isis was very important to the ancient Egyptians because she had so many different powers.