Representation of the Goddess Isis in Ancient Egypt - Term Paper Example

Module Module ID: Goddess Isis in Ancient Egypt By critically analyzing the cultures and civilizations of ancient times, it becomes crystal clear that belief in spiritual and metaphysical powers had always been part of people’s everyday life. The gods and goddesses had been inevitable part of the religious and spiritual belief of those cultures. The people had specified different gods for different purposes, and the same traits and characteristics and favors were expected from the particular deity. The people sought the support and benevolence of various gods and goddesses for peace, prosperity, love, war, fertility, health, protection, traveling and other fields and activities of life. For instance, Zeus is viewed as the mighty king of all gods and goddesses of ancient Greece, while Apollo is believed to be the god of the sun and music and Mars is the god of war, while Eurybia is the sea goddess. The same is applied to the Egyptian civilization of ancient times, where the people had developed faith in supernatural powers, and sought their help at every hour of need. Hence, the innate human instinct also forced the financially affluent and politically powerful Egyptians of ancient times to call for the divine support on domestic, personal, professional and collective matters. Somehow, the Egyptians lacked hegemony and cohesion in views and beliefs; which was partly because of the social, geographical and strategic division of the population, which did not accept the subjugation under one political authority and one single deity as well. “Egyptian mythology is of highly complex character, and cannot be considered apart from its racial and historical aspects. The Egyptians were, as a Hebrew prophet has declared, a "mingled people", and this view has been confirmed by recent ethnological research.” Consequently, they had developed belief in the multiplicity of gods and goddesses on the basis of clans and tribes on the one hand, and in the light of the traditions accredited to different deities on the other. (Mackenzie, 2002:2) The goddess Isis is also one among the long list of deities, which were worshipped by the ancient people of Egyptian peninsula with great religious fervor and enthusiasm. Being an extremely benevolent and compassionate goddess, she enjoys distinguished status in the ancient Egyptian mythology. Though the goddess maintained a universal status in the country, yet she got popularity and position in the southern regions of Egypt, which was not only the center of social, political and economic activities, but also dominated the rest of the region. “Currently there is a strong indication that Southern or Upper Egypt had gained a cultural ascendancy over Northern or Lower Egypt by c.3500 BC. In archaeological terms this southern culture is described as Naqada II.” (Hart, 2005:3) Hence, southern Egyptians declared their peace and prosperity as the outcome of the special bounties of the goddess upon them, which also motivated the northern areas of the country to imitate their footprints in spiritualism and faith. Isis is regarded as the goddess of motherhood, feminism, civil liberty, magic and fertility, and is revered and adored for displaying sheer affection and motherly attitude towards the Egyptian subjects without exhibiting any prejudice and discrimination towards any specific group or stratum of society. Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt portrays Isis as the queen and mother of all the Egyptians, which looked for bestowing maximum bounties and blessings upon the people to fill their life with countless joys in the form of abundance in food, children, pelf, possession and properties. “Isis had been a potent goddess as early as the third millennium B. C. She was the sister-wife of Osiris, with whom she mated in the womb of their mother, Nuit, the sky goddess.” (Mathews, 2001:25) Being the motherly deity, the goddess appears to be showering her unabated love on all and sundry, with special concentration of sympathies and compassion towards the lower stratum of society. The goddess always looks busy in helping the needy and rendering financial and moral support to the downtrodden masses undergoing financial crises and pecuniary embarrassments. Consequently, at one place, the goddess appears to be striving for the cause of the weak, needy and slaves, and at another region, she could be found protecting the female stratum from the misbehavior and high-handedness practiced by their fathers and husbands at domestic scale, and by the nasty strangers outside their residences. Since the goddess does not allow any type of injustices, inequalities and atrocities on the humans, she declines all possibilities of slavery and humiliation of humans at the hands of their fellow-beings. Somehow, her soft-hearted nature does not make her an entirely meek personality; on the contrary, her gallant deeds, power to command and appearance as well ratify her might and divine strength, which she applies against the cruelties and injustices being exercised against the defenseless humans on the Egyptian soil. In other words, she is the guardian and savior of the people, and leaves no stone unturned to fight for their cause with her full swing. Her strong and wide wings point out to her ability fly here and there to supervise and look after the lot of the people as well as to protect the countries from any external threats. Her headwear and dresses also reflect her divine strength, royal background, mighty powers and courage to impose pains on the rivals and rebels alike. “The knot on the Egyptian goddess Isis's girdle has become a symbol used in amulets or charms. Egyptians believed the Isis knot could guard you eternally from all evil. She restored life to her husband Osiris by flapping her wings and filling his mouth and nose with air.” (Retrieved from Lucas Learning Ltd, 2000) Isis’s husband, referred as Osiris, was also an Egyptian monarch in ancient era. He is regarded as the first king to teach the masses the skills and techniques related to agriculture, including the sowing of seeds, watering the plants, harvesting the crops and cultivating of fruit trees. Osiris was also the moon-deity, and had control over the waxing and waning of the moon. “The moon was believed to exercise a direct influence upon Nature as a generative agency; agriculturists were of opinion that seeds sown during its period of increase had more prolific growth than those sown when it was on the wane.” (Mackenzie, 2002:5) Actually the Egyptians considered moonlight for more effective and powerful for the crops than the sunlight; consequently, moon-god was the symbol of prosperity and fertility. It is therefore the ancient Egyptians believed that worshipping and presenting sacrifices to please Osiris would ensure the tremendous growth of the edible products, and his anger would invite the destruction of crops and subsequent hunger, starvation and famine in the country. Consequently, they used to invoke Osiris for the protection and flourishing of their crops, vegetables, grains and fruit. “Osiris was regarded as a human incarnation of the moon spirit. As a living ruler he displayed his lunar qualities by establishing laws for the regulation of human affairs and by promoting agriculture and gardening.” (Mackenzie, 2002:6) The Egyptians also revered Osiris on the foundations of the very belief that the god would guard their souls after death, and hence would provide them with the food and sustenance from the gardens of heavens. Hence, the ancient Egyptians not only had belief in the concepts like death, incarnation and the life Hereinafter, but also maintained faith that disbelief in deities would inflict them with woe torture, agony and violence in the life on the earth as well as in the next world. The goddess Isis seeks her origin during the fifth dynasty of Egypt in the Hellenistic civilization. “She was primarily the Lady of the House of Life, the possessor of the ankh, which was the symbol both of divine authority and also the key to the house of life itself.” (Mathews, 2001:26) Somehow, instead of confining her activities to the four walls of her palace only, she used to fly through the entire country to have first hand information about the difficulties and problems faced by her subjects. It is therefore she tried to remove their miseries by dint of her divine powers as well as by bestowing financial aid upon the masses. She fertilized the lands of the Egyptians through waters because of her supremacy over the River Nile. Somehow, she resisted the floods in order to protect them from drowning deep into cruel waves of the river. It is therefore her temples can be found at the banks of the river in Egypt. It is therefore well-worship and tree-worship are also exercised in Egypt to commemorate the benevolence practiced by the motherly deity. As a result, the goddess used to be widely worshipped by the people all over the country, and her adoration prevailed in Egypt at the advent of Christianity in Roman and Egyptian cultures. “There are those who declare that Isis is none other than the Moon; for this reason it is said that the statues of Isis that bear horns are imitations of the crescent moon, and in her dark garments are shown the concealments and the obscuration in which she in her yearning pursues the Sun (Osiris).” (Plutarch, 1957: 181) It is therefore the Greek and Roman emperors, warriors and conquerors used to worship her statute before commencing any war adventure, in order to win the will of the deity to ensure their success and domination over the rival forces. Brutus, the conspirator behind the assassination of Julius Caesar, also worshipped Isis, and he also constructed a temple in her honor after winning victory by killing Caesar. Alexander the Great is also stated to bow his head before the idol of the goddess, as being the neighboring region of the ancient Rome, Egyptian civilization had great inspirations and effects on the Roman culture. Being one of the oldest and most influential deities, Isis was revered even during the period of the Old Kingdom, where only the monarchs were blessed with the right to become immortal through incarnation in the same world. Since Isis ruled over Egypt during 5th dynasty, she enjoyed eternal life after death as a deity. It is therefore she was the empress of Egypt during the New Kingdom, where she was aptly called Aset or Isis. “In the Hall of Judgment She assists her husband or sits in the council of deities who judge the deceased. One could perhaps ascribe Aset?s part in these judgments to the heightened power of women in the royal family of the 18th Dynasty.” (Quoted in philae.nu) It is aptly quoted that the Queen-deity Aset was vehemently against slavery; she considered it as the sign of injustice and humiliation against humanity. “Isis was the great saving Goddess under whose many-colored cloak was subsumed the attributes and abilities of myriads of lesser deities.” (Matthews, 2001: 5) It was the Isis’s legendary personality, which inspired the Greek and Roman poets and writers to write verses in the praise of her benevolence. “Through Isis, Ovid comes into fundamental conflict with perhaps the most overtly propagandistic part of Virgil’s Aeneid, the polarization of the Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods on the shield of Aeneas. (Foley, 2008:488) The goddess did not let the women and slaves to become the prey to the victimization of the cruelty practiced by the affluent Egyptians. On the contrary, on finding any type of injustice and atrocity at the hands of an affluent, the goddess punished the culprit by snatching the flourishing or his crops and fields, and imposing poverty upon him subsequently. It is therefore the goddess became the symbol of justice, mercy and kindness, and her name was immortalized in almost all ancient cultures and civilizations of the world at large. Works Cited Foley, John Miles. A Companion to Ancient Epic: Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World John Wiley & Sons 2008 488 Gad, Fadel & Rafel, Lisa. Egypt: 11/11/11 Mysteries revealed Retrieved from http://www.lisarafel.com/pdf/Egypt%20Tour%20Itinerary.pdf Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses Second Edition Routledge London 2005 Retrieved from http://obinfonet.ro/docs/relig/egipt/egyptgods.pdf Mackenzie, Donald Egyptian Myth and Legend 2002 1-177 Retrieved from http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/egyeml.pdf Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 5, trans. by F. C. Babbitt London: Heinemann, 1957 181. Lucas Learning Ltd. Isis Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM 2000 Retrieved from http://www.lucaslearning.com/myth/pdf/isis.pdf Aset Through Time: A Brief Historical Overview Retrieved from http://www.philae.nu/akhet/Asethistory.html Matthews, Caitlin Isis: The Savior Goddess 2001 Retrieved from http://www.rosicrucian.org/publications/digest/digest1_2010/04_web/05_Matthews/05_matthews.pdf Read More