Deity · Egyptian · c. 2600 BCE
Isis
Also called Aset, Auset
The great magician who reassembles Osiris and tricks Ra into surrendering his secret name. Her cult eventually reached as far as Roman Britain.
Deep source base
The mourner and the searcher in the oldest material, paired with Nephthys as the two kites who find the body — and the mother of Horus and widow of Osiris are already one figure in the Pyramid Texts, which is the load-bearing joint of everything that follows. What follows is the largest afterlife of any Egyptian deity. Plutarch's account of the search made her legible to the Greek world; the mystery cult that grew from it reached Rome, Britain and the Rhine; and the iconography of a seated mother with a child on her lap outlives the religion entirely. She is the one figure here whose reception is larger than her original cult.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
What the name means
Greek form of Egyptian *Aset*, 'seat' or 'throne' — written with the throne hieroglyph she wears on her head.
Where it was actually worshipped
Philae, which remained in operation until the sixth century CE, long after the rest of Egypt was Christian. Temples as far as Roman London.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Pyramid Texts · c. 2350–2100 BCE
- Rank
- Great of Magic
- Pantheon
- Egyptian
- Order
- Egyptian pantheon
- Base of operations
- Philae, which remained in operation until the sixth century CE, long after the rest of Egypt was Christian. Temples as far as Roman London.
- Era
- c. 2600 BCE
- Traditions
- Egyptian, Roman
Traits
- Domain
- Magic, healing, kingship, motherhood
- Traditional form
- Winged, with a throne-glyph headdress
2 sites
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
now Bilaq
The island temple of Isis, still in operation into the sixth century, long after the rest of Egypt was Christian.
24.025, 32.884 · Pleiades 786089
now London
A jug found in the Thames is inscribed LONDINI AD FANVM ISIDIS — at London, at the temple of Isis. Fifteen hundred miles from Philae, and the reason her reach is the point rather than her origin.
The far end of her reach: a temple in Roman Britain, attested by an inscribed jug from the Thames.
51.513, -0.089 · Pleiades 79574
5 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 5 offices attributed to Isis, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- divination1
- transformation2
- material1
- social1
2 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
3 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 3 texts that names Isis, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
3 texts spanning roughly 2,450 years
Mourner and searcher, paired with Nephthys as the two kites who find the body and keep watch over it. The mother of Horus and the widow of Osiris are already one figure here, which is the load-bearing joint of the entire later cult.
Restores Osiris, protects Horus, and knows the true names by which the gods may be compelled.
The searcher, in the form that travelled: she recovers the body, and when it is scattered she recovers the pieces and buries each where it was found. Plutarch's Isis is already the goddess of the Mediterranean mystery cult rather than the Egyptian one, and it is his version the Roman world worshipped.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Afterwards
What did later readers make of it?
The last Egyptian cult to survive, and the most widely exported. Her iconography — mother seated with a nursing child — is a live question in the study of early Marian imagery.
Kept in its own section on purpose. Everything above is what the cited texts say; this is what was built on top of them afterwards, and blending the two is how most popular demonology goes wrong.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Isis?
Is Isis the same as Ishtar?
What rank is Isis?
How else is Isis spelled?
What is Isis said to do?
How old is Isis?
Nearest in the corpus
If Isis is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Khepri
The Morning Sun · Egyptian
The sun at dawn, in the form of a scarab beetle rolling it up over the horizon — one of the three daily aspects of the sun, and a pun on the word for coming into being.
Anubis
Guide of the Dead · Egyptian
Embalmer and psychopomp, who leads the dead to the scales — the office Western tradition eventually gives to Michael and to Azrael.
Horus
Falcon King · Egyptian
Son of Osiris, who contends eighty years with Set for the throne. Every living pharaoh was understood to be his incarnation.
Nephthys
Lady of the House · Egyptian
Set's wife who sides with her sister Isis against him, and mourns Osiris at the head of the bier.
Osiris
Lord of the Dead · Egyptian
Murdered by Set, reassembled by Isis, and installed as judge of the dead. He is the earliest fully developed dying-and-rising sovereign we have.
Set
God of Storms and Disorder · Egyptian
Murderer of Osiris and defender of the sun-barque — a god who was worshipped as a royal patron for two millennia before being recast as the enemy.
The books behind Isis
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Pyramid Texts
Anonymous; carved for the kings and queens of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties · c. 2350–2100 BCE · Old Egyptian
Read The Pyramid Texts in full ↗The Egyptian Book of the Dead
Anonymous; tr. E. A. Wallis Budge · c. 1550 BCE onward · Egyptian
Read The Egyptian Book of the Dead in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Hunefer · Wikimedia file page
On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride)
Plutarch of Chaeronea; tr. from the Moralia · c. 100 CE · Ancient Greek
Read On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride) in full ↗
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.