Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Isis cult developed its mysteries in response to the widespread belief that the Greek mystery cults had originated with Isis and Osiris in Egypt. [9] As the classicist Miguel John Verlsuys puts it, "For the Greeks, the image of Egypt as old and religious was so strong that they could not but imagine Isis as a mystery goddess."
The Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris's murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne. Meanwhile, Osiris's wife Isis restores her husband's body, allowing him to posthumously conceive their son ...
The cults of Isis and Serapis were among those that expanded in this way. [131] Spread by merchants and other Mediterranean travelers, the cults of Isis and Serapis were established in Greek port cities at the end of the fourth century BCE and expanded throughout Greece and Asia Minor during the third and second centuries.
The Mysteries of Osiris, also known as Osirism, [1] were religious festivities celebrated in ancient Egypt to commemorate the murder and regeneration of Osiris.The course of the ceremonies is attested by various written sources, but the most important document is the Ritual of the Mysteries of Osiris in the Month of Khoiak, a compilation of Middle Kingdom texts engraved during the Ptolemaic ...
The cult of Isis and Osiris continued at Philae until at least the 450s CE, long after the imperial decrees of the late 4th century that ordered the closing of temples to "pagan" gods. Philae was the last major ancient Egyptian temple to be closed.
The merging of local Theban beliefs with the Osiris cult endowed Harpocrates with dual ancestry, as seen in inscriptions at Wadi Hammamat which name him 'Horus-the-child, son of Osiris and Isis, the Elder, the first-born of Amun.' The Osirian tradition solidified Harpocrates as the archetype of child-gods, firmly integrated into the Osirian family.
As sister of Isis and especially Osiris, Nephthys is a protective goddess who symbolizes the death experience, just as Isis represented the birth experience. Nephthys was known in some ancient Egyptian temple theologies and cosmologies as the "Helpful Goddess" or the "Excellent Goddess". [ 3 ]
The cult was probably introduced in Rome during the 2nd century BC, as attested by two inscriptions discovered on the Capitoline Hill mentioning priests of Isis Capitolina. [4] Cassius Dio reports that in 53 BC the Senate ordered the destruction of all private shrines inside the pomerium dedicated to Egyptian gods; [ 5 ] however, a new temple ...