Difference between revisions of "Isis"

Many of the roles Isis acquired gave her an important position in the sky. Passages in the Pyramid Texts connect Isis closely with [[Sopdet]], the goddess representing the star [[Sirius]], whose relationship with her husband [[Sah]]—the constellation Orion—and their son Sopdu parallels Isis's relations with Osiris and Horus. Sirius's heliacal rising, just before the start of the Nile flood, gave Sopdet a close connection with the flood and the resulting growth of plants. Partly because of her relationship with Sopdet, Isis was also linked with the flood, which was sometimes equated with the tears she shed for [[Osiris]].

By Ptolemaic times she was connected with rain, which Egyptian texts call a "Nile in the sky"; with the [[sun]] as the protector of [[Ra]]'s barque; and with the [[moon]], possibly because she was linked with the Greek lunar goddess Artemis by a shared connection with an Egyptian fertility goddess, Bastet. In hymns inscribed at Philae she is called the "Lady of Heaven" whose dominion over the sky parallels Osiris's rule over the Duat and [[Horus]]'s kingship on earth.