Like Osiris, Isis rose through antiquity to become one of the most lasting deities of all time. Isis is the power that makes kings, and her crown is a throne.

She is a goddess that first appeared in the 4th Dynasty as wife and sister to Osiris and daughter of Nut and Geb. In earliest times Isis is depicted as the "Mistress of Magic" who learns Ra's true name and thus the secrets of the universe.

In the cult of Osiris, Isis was attributed with having prepared Him for burial and then conceiving a son upon His dead body, an act
for which she magically reanimates him long enough to complete. (In Egyptian texts, Osiris's death is attributed to drowning; the dismemberment myth given by Plutarch does not appear until millennia later and may not even be Egyptian in origin).

In later periods and particularly during the New Kingdom, Isis would be syncretized with a number of other goddesses, Hathor in particular, and took on "Mother Goddess" characteristics. During this time, Isis's importance as the mother of Horus (a God intimately connected with Pharaoh) becomes paramount, in ways strongly suggestive of the later cult of the Virgin Mary.

The Romans declared all feminine goddesses to be forms of Isis (although the Egyptians did not). They crowned her the "Goddess of Ten Thousand Names" and built a marvelous temple complex to her on Philae island. This was a time of immense popularity for Isis, and Philae was her island, where pilgrims would come from all over the Mediterranean.