The Lion of Chaeronea

Seated statuette (bronze with gold and electrum inlay) of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The goddess is shown cupping her right breast, which she would have offered to her infant son Horus (now lost). Artist unknown; ca. 650-550 BCE. Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

Ancient Roman statuette (cast bronze) of the composite goddess Isis-Fortuna, found with five other deities in the lararium (household shrine) of a villa at Boscoreale, italy. Artist unknown; 1st cent. CE. Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

Limestone sculpture from Roman Egypt, depicting the goddess Isis as a Roman matron. Now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Photo credit: Mary Harrsch/Wikimedia Commons.

The goddess Isis greets the 30th Dynasty pharaoh Nectanebo II. Fragment (painted limestone) of the door of a small temple built at the entry of the alley to the Serapaeum, Saqqara, Egypt. Artist unknown; ca. 359-341 BCE. Now in the Louvre. Photo credit: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons.

Ancient Egyptian faience amulet depicting the deities Isis, Horus, and Nephthys.  Artist unknown; 4th cent. BCE (Late Period or Ptolemaic).  Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Ancient Egyptian limestone statue depicting the goddess Isis and Wepwawet, wolf-headed deity from the Upper Egyptian city of Asyut (Lykopolis).  The statue is inscribed with the name of Siese, Overseer of the Two Granaries under the 19th Dynasty pharaoh Ramesses II “The Great” (r. 1279-1213 BCE).  From Siese’s tomb at Asyut; now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Stone slab bearing a Greek dedication to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis from one Marcus Agelleius, with a carved ear representing the deities’ heeding the prayers of their devotees.  Artist unknown; 1st cent. BCE.  Now in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.  Photo credit: Gts-tg/Wikimedia Commons.

Ancient Egyptian pectoral (faience with yellow glaze) in the shape of a shrine, depicting the goddesses Isis and Nephthys aboard the solar barque, adoring a scarab (now lost) beneath a winged sun-disk.  Artist unknown; ca. 1300-1200 BCE (18th or 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom).  Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.  Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

Ancient Egyptian pendant (gold, lapis lazuli, and red glass), depicting the divine family of Osiris, Isis, and Horus.  On the pillar supporting Osiris is the cartouche of the 22nd Dynasty pharaoh Osorkon II (r. 872-837 BCE).   Now in the Louvre.   Photo credit: Guillaume Blanchard/Wikimedia Commons.

Bronze aegis of the goddess Isis, showing the goddess wearing a tripartite wig with twelve uraeus-serpents.  Artist unknown; 30th Dynasty (Late Period, 380-343 BCE).  Found at Saqqara; now in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London.  Photo credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/Wikimedia Commons.

Painted wooden box from Ancient Egypt, used to hold either ushabtis or canopic jars.  On the side shown, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys venerate a djed-pillar (representing the backbone of Osiris).  Artist unknown; ca. 850-700 BCE (Third Intermediate Period).  Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.  Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

Marble head of a Roman priest of the Egyptian goddess Isis.  Artist unknown; 2nd cent. CE or later.  Now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Photo credit: LACMA.

Fresco from the Temple of Isis in Pompeii: above, the discovery of the boat holding Osiris’ coffin; below, two snakes approach a cylinder decorated with a crescent moon.  Now in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.  Photo credit: Carole Raddato.