Grail Sciences

The Germans Worshiped Isis?!

• Nathaniel Heutmaker • Season 4 • Episode 1

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A single line from Tacitus sparks a mystery: some of the Suebi “also sacrificed to Isis.” Was a Roman historian just confused, or did he glimpse a northern goddess through a Mediterranean lens? We pull on that thread and follow it across ships, stars, flood cycles, and royal power to see where it leads.

We start with the emblem at the heart of the claim: a Liburnian ship. That detail does heavy lifting. It evokes border cults, sea trade, and portable rites that travel with sailors and merchants. From there, we outline how interpretatio Romana works—why Mercury can stand for Odin, Hercules for Thor, and Mars for Tyr—then ask why Tacitus kept “Isis” instead of swapping in Venus or Minerva. The best answer isn’t error; it’s function. Late antique Isis is queen of heaven and patron of ships, a mother and mourner, a healer and magician, star-linked to Sirius and aligned with the Nile’s life-giving inundation. Through syncretism with Hathor and Nephthys, she carries joy, music, sovereignty, funerary care, and the power of a necklace that enthrones.

With that profile fixed to Tacitus’ timeframe, we build an attribute map—ships, sovereignty, fertility, prophecy, weaving, fate, gold and copper, rain and river sources, life and death, resurrection motifs—and test northern candidates. Freya brings Brísingamen, love, seiðr, battle-choice, and hints of maritime symbolism. Frigg and Sága contribute prophecy, weaving, water halls, and enthronement by marriage. Iðunn offers renewal and lifespan through apples, braided into poetry and skill. Regional figures like Nehalennia add dogs, sea altars, and underworld travel. The question shifts from name-matching to role-matching: which goddess occupies the liminal seam between sea and field, birth and burial, crown and cosmos?

Rather than declare a neat winner, we show you the method to get there. Align by traits specific to the era, not timeless clichés; follow ritual technology like ships and necklaces; respect how ideas move along frontiers. Next, we’ll dig deeper into Freya, Frigg, Iðunn, and coastal cults to test the best fit with stories, archaeology, and language evidence.

If this kindles your curiosity, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves myth and history, and leave a review telling us which goddess you think Tacitus saw. Your theory might shape the next deep dive.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone. So today we're going to be doing something a little different than what I normally do. If you are listening on the podcast, this is going to be very visual because I'm going to be giving a slide flow presentation. I'm also going to be doing that for the next one on here. So today's presentation is going to be about ISIS among the Swavey or among the Germanic peoples and whatnot. And we're going to try to understand what tachitus meant here. I'm also going to be going into how this has to do with grail sciences as long along with the other videos that I posted out there recently with James Blackley, having to do with the Sumerian stuff that we put out there and whatnot. It's all connected, everything that I'm doing, even if it doesn't seem like it is, is all connected to the to the grail in some capacity or another. And I'm going to be building up into it. So we're also going to be making it so that way we understand how the new seasons are going to be working. From this point forward, they're going to be done in terms of like playlists and whatnot. So every time I do something on the Nordic stuff, that's going to go in there. Every time I do something on the Sumerian, it's going to go in there. Every time I'm going to do something that's on the Arthurian, it's going to go in there. Some of it's going to be its own separate category, some of it's going to be where it can be multiple playlists. So we'll have to figure that out as we go along. But without further ado, I'm going to get um straight into today's presentation. And I hope you enjoyed this format because it's different than what I've done before. And it's more akin to how I do things for the couple workshops that I've done in the past, which you can purchase from my website at GrailSciences.com. Anyway, let's begin. That's what the presentation is called. And it's pulled from Tacitus' Germania. Tacitus wrote this in approximately the year ninety to one hundred AD or so. Most people believe around 98 AD now. And so this is 1900 plus years ago. And he's talking about something that just doesn't fit with the rest of the narrative, and it's been very interesting to try to understand what he means by this. And we'll go into that today. And so this is exactly what Tacitus states. He makes it so that way he says the following, basically, and whatnot in the English translation. Please note that I've bolded certain parts and even highlighted something that the highlighted and bolded part is obviously what we're talking about today. So, quoting Tacitus, he says the following Among the gods, Mercury is one of the they principally worship it. They regard it as a religious duty to offer to him on fixed days, human as well as other sacrificial victims. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind. Part of the Swabi sacrificed to Isis as well. I have whoops. Sorry about that. I have little idea what the origin or explanation of this foreign cult is, except that the goddess's emblem, which resembles a light worship, and I put an asterisk next to that because we're going to cover that in a little bit, indicates that cult came from abroad. So interpretatio romana, aka Roman interpretation. This is how Tacitus and other scholars during his time would go and interpret other gods. They would do that using gods that their audience is familiar with, in this case, Roman ones, and comparing them to ones that are of foreign cults and saying, okay, these share the same general identity as Mercury or of Hercules or as Mars, as he's pointing out here. So that way he could make it understood by his audience very easily that he was writing for back home. So this is two translations of that same part that's going on here, one from Burley and one from Rives. And then I also have the original Latin that he was writing in up there. So Burley says part of the Swabi sacrificed to Isis as well. I have little idea what the origin or explanation of this foreign cult is, except that the goddess's emblem, which resembles light worship, indicates that cult came from abroad. All right, so this is Rive's translation. It's a little different, mostly the same for what's going on, just word choice different, except for when it comes to the worship part. He uses a specific worship, which is a Libernian worship, which is actually, of course, the true one. When you can see it over here in Latin when I bolded both of them for what's going on there. So in that part, Rive's translation is definitely a better translation. And he says, some of the Swabi sacrifice also to Isis. I cannot determine the reason and origin of this foreign cult, but her emblem, fashioned in the form of a Libernian ship, proves that her worship comes from abroad. So on the screen here, you can see that this is a picture of Italy and the surrounding regions and whatnot. And you can see right across the sea from Italy, there, you have Libernian, right between the Illyrian uh area and you know, next Venetic and Etruscan. And this is where the Libernian stuff were to come from, from their warships and that kind of stuff, with that very much part of the Roman uh area of conquest during this time period, and that is the type of ships that they are comparing it to. Here is a couple of examples of Libernian warships. One of them on the uh screen is obviously like a kind of like a toy model for what's going on there. The other one is an artist's impression. You can clearly see that this is very much the same idea and same boat, maybe slightly variations, but that's true of any ship during that time period because they're all handmade for what's going on there. As you can see, this is basically a light warship, as has been mentioned, and it kind of looks like something that the Vikings would be having much later on for what's going on there with some oars, one sail at the mast and whatnot that's kind of happening there with it. So keep that in mind for later on in this presentation. Here are a few archaeological examples, or at least what are believed to be archaeological examples by the archaeological community for what's going on there. I know it's a little hard to tell on one of them of what exactly is being shown there, but you can clearly see that it's the same general concept that's playing out here between the two of them as the examples that were given above and whatnot. And it makes it very clear as to what type of ship that uh Tacitus is referring to in his writings. And here we have two other examples that I give of a Roman warship and a Egyptian warship. The Egyptian one is from 3,200 years ago, the Roman one is more from Tacitus' era. Again, it's very similar to the Libernian one because that's what Rome does for it is, but you can even see in the Egyptian one 1200, 1300 years before Tacitus' time, that it that's still very much a similar concept, and you can even note the type of flag that they have sail that they have up there that's very similar to a Viking ship's decor that we've come to associate with their sails and whatnot. So this is all kind of important for what's happening there. So here's something that's even more interesting and more telling, in my opinion. Tacitus names all of the gods that he refers to in this section after Roman ones, except for whoever this Isis is, that we're trying to figure out inside of the story that's happening here, what that he's kind of giving of the people of Germania uh 1900-ish years ago. So when Tacitus mentions Mercury, he's really saying the characters or gods or uh of of the Germanic and Nordic people of Odin, Woden, and Wotan. Obviously different ways of saying it and spelling it depending upon the tribe, the region, the, and the era that's going on there. When Tacitus mentions Hercules, he's really saying Thor or Donar or other variants of this particular name for what's going on there as well. And then when Tacitus mentions Mars, the their war god, he is referring to Thui or Tyr or other variants of that particular name. Again, the question becomes this who is this Isis figure? Questions to considering here, besides just that, is you know, what I view that we must be asking ourselves is why does Tacitus break the Roman scheme of interpretation here only for this god slash goddess? Okay, he doesn't do it for any of the other ones, he uses that. Why doesn't he use another Roman god or one that was more known potentially, like Minerva or Venus or Ceres? Why does he refer to it as a foreign cult that came from abroad and is associated with ships, of course? And then, of course, why does he use an Egyptian goddess? And who could she be possibly represented in the Germanic slash Nordic pantheon? These are what we're going to try to figure out, uh, or and whatnot. So, huge question that needs to be asked also is was Tacitus mistaken? He even mentioned himself that he has little idea or origin of this cult is. So, did Tacitus make a mistake? It is generally accepted by scholars that he did not see or witness all this stuff for himself, that he's getting it from second-hand accounts, meaning that he wasn't there to witness it, but he's getting it from other people that are relaying the information to him. And so, you know, maybe he doesn't understand what he's saying there with it, or that they made a mistake, whoever was giving him this information, or whatever. We need to consider this possibility as well, of course. So, what do scholars say about the cult of ISIS among the Swabi? Well, in general, there is no true scholarly consensus. There is debate on who the ISIS figure is supposed to represent, but most scholars seem to believe the Tacitus was mistaken and do not take the claims all that seriously. As the proof of that particular point, is taken from Wikipedia, which obviously you can take with a grain of salt that is Wikipedia, after all, but is still a useful source of starting point for information that can be gleaned from most people for free, which is the huge spelling point of Wikipedia. It says the following in his translation of Germania, scholar J.B. Rives comments that while in Tacitus' time the cult of ISIS was widespread and is well attested in the provinces on the border of Germania, Tacitus' identification is problematic because the cult of Isis seems to have spread with Greco-Roman culture. Rives comments that most scholars believe that Tacitus has misidentified a native Germanic ritual that bore some resemblance to a well-known Asiatic ritual that involved a ship. Yes, that's not a mistake on Tacitus' part. What Rives is saying is obviously correct, but it should also be that noted that Tacitus was writing for a Roman audience and then had to choose gods or goddesses that they would have been familiar with. So the whole point is that while Rives says that he must be mistaken, it can't possibly be Isis, meaning the Egyptian goddess there that they were worshiping. This is true. But he's using again an interpretation, meaning that he's replacing one goddess for another goddess, and in this case, he chose Isis. That's what he did there. So when Tacitus refers to it as a foreign cult, but which he has little idea or origin of, in other words, the scholars miss the point entirely. Tacitus knows that it's not Isis, but something that resembles Isis, that he has no explanation for it. AKA he knows it was not because of Roman expansion. So it's not because of Roman expansion, and it's not because of that. I don't understand how scholars don't get to this. This should not be debated that he was mistaken in this instance for what's going on there, at least for why scholars are saying for what it is. The people that he's getting information from could be mistaken, of course, but that's not what most scholars are trying to say, as it's pointed out by Rive's own comment here. So, how are we going to find this ISIS? That's what we need to do here, how we need to understand this. Snorri in his prose Edda wrote that you can come to know a god or goddess by his or her attributes and associations and family. So Snorri was writing poetry and whatnot. He wrote his prose Edda, which was a commentary on how to write and understand the old Nordic poems that were written down. And he did this in the 1200s and around 1220 to 1225 is what most scholars think. And in it, he writes the notion that you can know these things by the associations and attributes and family members of the of the other gods and goddesses. So an example of this is if I say tear's hammer, well, tear doesn't have a hammer, Thor has a hammer, so we know that tear is actually being replaced here, and it's actually a stand-in for Thor in this instance for what's going on there, because with the association of Molnir, the name of Thor's hammer, that's going on in this particular thing with it. So that's all well and good. I'm each Snori obviously is writing hundreds of years after the fact, but the point is that these songs that were done in poetry are much older. We don't know how old some of these things are. Some of them could be only hundreds of years older than they were written down, but some of them could be much, much older. It's hard to say. It really depends on the story and all these other things. We know in the archaeological record that we can find stuff that goes back well to Tacitus' time for certain Germanic entities that are on there. So we're using this as a litmus test, if you will, to help us find Isis in this instance, whoever this so-called Isis is. We also know that the Roman interpretation, the Tacitus, is using the exact same idea. He's saying that when we are calling Mercury Odin, excuse me, we're calling Odin Mercury, and when we're calling Thor Hercules, and when we're calling Tyr Mars, he's doing the exact same idea. Coming to know a god or goddess by their attributes and associations. So there's no difference on that front with it. Tacitus is using it, and we know that we're doing it later on for what's happening here. This is just the way that things were done. We are given the following clues by Tacitus: ships as an emblem and Isis as a goddess for what's going on here. These are very important. So obviously, as I mentioned, gods and goddesses can change over time, and we need to be looking for a goddess that existed about 2,000 years ago in northern Germanic lands and compare it to the goddess Isis of 2,000 years ago as well. This is important. We don't want to be pulling attributes from Isis that are from 5,000 years ago only. That won't help us in our search. If those attributes start 5,000 years ago and continue down to the time when Tacitus wrote, then that is a valid attribute, obviously. And so Isis has a complex history and many changes to the understanding of her and her cult throughout her mythological cycle. We only need to concern ourselves with what was understood to be attributed to her at the time of the writing by Tacitus. So, who is Isis? What are her attributes and her associations? So you can see here that there's a picture of Isis and whatnot. This is how you would find her dressed up in various different ways inside of how she would show up in the hieroglyphics and whatnot. Please note that the thing on her head that's there with it. It is a throne. That's what it is in terms of the hieroglyphic understanding of it. This is important to understand her. There is another god, and there's excuse me, other goddesses that look very similar to her that we'll meet later on in an encounter later on, that you literally could not tell the difference between them without having this particular part that denotes her in comparison. So let's begin with associations and attributes. Hathor, the two goddesses. We're starting with Hathor. The Hathor is the other one here that I was talking about, that she looks almost exactly the same with. The two goddesses are often so alike in appearance that only the hieroglyphic inscription can confirm which one of them is actually portrayed. Alright. Both Hathor and Isis were linked to the star. I want you to keep that in mind, star here, Spika, which is a part of Virgo, aka you know the maiden, the virgin. That's what it would be in the classical understanding of the constellations here. This star first appears around harvest time, so therefore it should be associated with fertility in some components or another for what's going on there. A further link is provided by the fact that when Horus chopped off Isis's head, because Isis would not strike the fatal blow against her brother Set, she responded by causing the head of a cow, one of the most common forms of Hathor, to grow in its place. So, in other words, they're literally so linked that even when Isis has her head chopped off, another one grows in and it's the head of Hathor. So we need to study Hathor as well in order to understand Isis here, and therefore to also help us understand what's going on with the goddess that we're trying to find of the Germanic peoples of the Swabi here. So to understand this story a little bit better, that I mentioned here, Set is a huge problem. He went and murdered Osiris and whatnot, and Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis, but is also a reincarnation of Osiris through magical means. So that is kind of what's happening here. This is why he's upset about it and why he loses his temper when Isis refuses to kill off their mortal foe, basically, or in this case their divine foe. So, yeah. If you translate to the name of Hathor or Isis in this case specifically, her name translated from Egyptian means female or lady of the throne. So please keep this in mind with the lady idea and throne or queen of the throne for what's going on there, because this will help us locate the individual goddess later on that we're trying to find in the Nordic slash Germanic pantheon. More associations and attribute. So now we have a goddess that's associated with knowledge as well. Another possible translation is female slash lady, which we've already covered, of flesh. So you have that. In this instance, it does not necessarily mean in physical form, it's more associated in terms of it, meaning sexuality here for what's going on. So Isis as the personification of the throne, she was obviously has a huge importance and the source of the pharaoh's power. This is obviously prior to the Roman occupation for what's going on here. So, you know, you see this with Cleopatra, and you see this with other queens and that kind of stuff, that the female line is actually what determined the importance of who the pharaoh was. Not the male that's the important. Without the female that he is marrying, uh, he has no right to rule. And so you're seeing a variant of this showing up here as as well, where the female is the one that is enthroning the person that's going on there with it. So she is referred to as one who gives birth to heaven and earth, knows the orphan, knows the widow, seeks justice for the poor, and shelter from the weak. This is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, also known as the Egyptian book of going forth by day. Isis was part of the Ennead, an aka grouping of nine gods and goddesses. So she's associated with the number nine. So we need to keep this in mind for what's happening. So we've got knowledge, flesh, nine, someone that gives birth to heaven and earth, and is uh someone that seeks justice. From the new kingdom, so during Tacitus' time, but not necessarily the entirety of Isis's existence. She was considered to be the archetypical mother and was a patron goddess of childbirth and motherhood. So we have childbirth and motherhood. Isis and her husband Osiris had actually ruled Egypt before the time of the pharaohs. This is what was believed by the Egyptians themselves, according to some of their own stuff that survived and whatnot. So they could actually have been of the actual physical flesh as well, and it could have actually been a mortal thing with it, and then they became deified later on. This is a possibility. Even if that is the case, the gods and goddesses became symbols of understanding of nature and other things later on as well. So with the adoption of mythology of Helopolis as the national religion, this began to promote Osiris to the position of king of the netherworld, which was previously held by Anubis, who is directly behind me here, that I keep up there with that, with the weighing of the heart and the feather, which is all associated with the stuff that we're talking about now. So we're going to continue on with more associations and attributes. Isis is also associated with prophecy. In the pyramid text, it has implied that she knows her spouse Osiris is going to die, but she is incapable of stopping it. Her priestesses were said to have magical powers such as interpreting dreams, the ability to control the weather by braiding or combing their hair. Isis was also depicted as a winged goddess or a kite. Kite is a type of bird. From the New Kingdom, she also adopted the vulture headdress with cow horns on either side of a sun disk between them. There is an amulet that she wore known as the jet. Might be mispronouncing that. The Egyptian Book of the Dead claims that it should be red in color, although blue and yellow variants have been discovered in the archaeological finds. It also looks similar to an onk, except arms are bent downward and is a knot of magical power associated with resurrection and rebirth, just like the last three episodes that I had put out with the Sumerian stuff that was going on there with Inana, Dumizid, and Gilgamesh, where we were talking about these same notions of trying to find immortality, resurrection, and rebirth. So here is a picture of her and a surviving manuscript that shows her with her vulture wings. These are also sometimes described as falcon wings that's going on there. Then you have in the center here a picture of the tajet, and on the right, you have one of the onk. They're very similar looking in terms of their general notion of things that are happening here, of course. So there has been many people believe, many scholars believe that there's a direct uh association with this. If not, then at least an indirect one, potentially. All right. So we're gonna go into more associations and attributes. During the Ptolemaic period, she was linked with a start, which is a goddess that was inside of the Levant in terms of the importance for what was going on there. And that particular goddess was associated with ship uh and with other things of that particular nature for what's happening there. Astart actually gets us to be the same goddess as Ishtar for the Babylonians and whatnot, and Ishtar gets us inanna for what's going on there for the Sumerians. So this is important because we're actually talking about Inanna as well in a way for what's going on here at the same time from the Sumerian side of things. So this is what part of the buildup for that aspect of things that were going on is before I did this particular study here that I put forth. So anyway, if you want to go learn about those three things that I mentioned before, they're all connected to this presentation as well, some of it indirectly, some of it directly. So her Latin epithet, meaning Isis's Latin epithet, was stellar maris, aka the star. Of the sea. She was also known as Regnia Koeli. Might be slightly mispronouncing that, which means Queen of Heaven, which again is directly associated with Inanna, as I had done earlier. In later times, Isis became associated with another star known as Sopet, which means skilled wolf, skilled woman, and also known as Sothis, which is represented by the star that we know in the Western world as Sirius, the dog star. So now we have an association with dogs. Sirius was the most important star to the ancient Egyptian astronomers because it signaled the approach of the inundation and the beginning of a new year. So in other words, we have inundation now and fertility and bringing water to the land and a desert, water is some of the most precious stuff you can have. Osiris became associated with constellation Orion, the hidden one called Sahu by the Egyptians and whatnot. Hercules is associated with the constellation Orion inside of the Romanic or Greco-Roman tradition for what's going on there, and that would make it Thor inside of the Nordic one, in terms of how the Romans would have interpreted it. I'm not saying that's how the Nordics actually interpreted it, just how the Romans would have interpreted that. Horus was associated with Suptu, generally the East Rising Sun, and sometimes Venus. And this form was a falcon. So it's always a falcon when he's in Supdu's form, and it's sometimes it's usually associated with the rising sun, but also sometimes the planet Venus. Isis is also associated with crops filled, cultivated land, and the inundation of the Nile, as well as an earth goddess. So the inundation part will become important, crops filled and cultivated land will become important, and the notion of an earth goddess will become important. Pretty much anything that I put it in bold would be something that is highly important and can help us find who ISIS is in terms of what it means for the Germanic goddess andor goddesses that we're trying to find. Isis is also associated with ships and boats. Okay, so Tacitus mentioned ships and boats earlier. A start is mentioned with ships and boats. As we talked about before, we've got the sea here that's going on with it. There's lots of associations that are starting to line up with the limited information that Tacitus has given us. There are many goddesses that are deemed as aspects of Isis. We will only be looking at a few core ones. Ma'at, Hathor, which we touched on a little bit already, and Nephitis. And Nephitis is the sister of Isis. She is married to Set, which we briefly touched upon earlier. When I say aspects, that means that they share the same, they're considered part of the same goddess and that they are separate from them in certain functions, but all overall they go back to that same goddess. Again, this is not necessarily how they were deemed originally. This is during the time of Tacitus and how things came down. A lot of gods and goddesses got absorbed by other gods and goddesses as their cults grew in power for what's happening there. There are other reasons for this, but that's not the point of this video, so we're not going to go into that at this moment. We are just going to make it so that way it is about this. So Nephitis is so closely associated with her sister Isis that it's impossible to tell them apart without their headdresses. So on the left hand side, here on the screen, you can see Isis. You can denote her by her throne that's on her head. You have Osiris in the middle, which is Isis's sister. And then you have Nephitus on the right-hand side. And as you can see, there is no difference between them, at least for how this image is portrayed, other than the very top of the headdress that's there for what's going on there, which is separate from that. Now I know this is not what it actually is, but if you go and look at it, it's supposed to be a basket on top of a house that's there with it. Notice how it almost looks like a chalice, though, which I find very interesting since all this still has to do with resurrection and whatnot that's going on. That's the whole point of the story of Osiris that's happening here. Reincarnation, rebirth, whatever you want to call it, and you know, trying to find immortality to a certain extent that's happening there with it. And Nephitus is vital for bringing back Osiris together for what's happening. They make it so that way almost all of his parts are found. He was chopped up into 15, according to the dismemberment story that was going on there with it. They find all of them except one, in this case, his phallus, his penis, and they have to craft that. And then, of course, by means of magic, they do that, and then Isis gets pregnant from her deceased husband. He becomes king of the netherworld, not until later on, of course. Originally that was Anubis, and that makes it, or at least that's what's believed by scholars, and that makes it so that way she gives a new, she gets a new son who is just the reincarnation in terms of a living form of Osiris called Horus. That's the general shortened version of all this. Nephitis helps with grabbing the parts, helps with preserving the body, and other things of this nature for what's happening there. But again, they look basically like they're twins for what's happening here in terms of the Egyptian account. So Nephitis and her association. She's called the mistress or lady of the house. We've already seen the notion of the house idea and her headdress that's there. House in Egyptian could also represent sky. That's important to note here. Nephitis was given a place on Ra's boat, so she could accompany him on his journey through the underworld. So we have a boat again, and we have the underworld association again. She is married to Set, who seems to represent like the desert or the barren wasteland and whatnot, and she represents the air. Hence the sky part that we're talking about here. Isis and Nephitis are always together in funerary scenes. This is hugely important. They are always together, they are not separated. She can take on the form of a vulture. This is the she's the goddess of death and mourning, as in like crying for somebody after they become dead or deceased. She's the source of the Nile, and she is associated with rain. So she's associated with water, various different forms of water. And she is the protector of women in childbirth. Alright. There are a few myths in which Nephitis pretends to be Isis and gets Osiris to sleep with her, showing just how similar the two were, where even he cannot tell them apart except for what's going on there. We've already touched a little bit on Hathor before, but we're going to go deeper into things. Hathor was known as the one, the great one of many names. Her titles and attributes were so numerous that she was important in every area of life and death of the ancient Egyptians. She was originally a personification of the Milky Way, which was considered to be the milk that flowed from the udders of a heavenly cow. Hathar was a sky goddess known as the lady of the stars and sovereign of the stars, and is linked to Sirius, again, the dog star, which we already know is associated with Isis. That's here with it. You get sovereignty here, and you get the notion of stars popping up again that's happening here with it. So you have where Isis and Hathor are sharing the exact same components here. And again, we've talked about the story briefly of the head being chopped off for Isis and it being replaced with Hathor to show that this is the true nature of them, that they are the same goddess ultimately. She, unlike other gods and goddesses, had both male and female priests. Typically, a god or goddess had only one gender that was doing stuff. Obviously, it changes from time, period, and place and that kind of stuff. We're just speaking in generalities here for ancient Egypt. We are not talking in terms of blanket statements. That would be absurd. Hathor's birthday was celebrated on the day that Sirius first rose in the sky, heralding the coming of the inundation, which is typically in July in ancient Egyptian times. So you have the inundation idea again, and you have the exact same association with Isis that's being done here. She is known as the mistress, lady, andor queen of heaven. She was called the celestial nurse. She nursed the Pharaoh in the guise of a cow or as a sycamore fig. This is because the sycamore fig exudes a white milky substance, which gives us the notion of her being associated with the Milky Way, and of course, with breast milk and that of a divine cow and giving milk. She was called the mother of mothers, so she's the originator of everything, just like Isis, and the goddess of women, fertility, children, and childbirth, everything's showing up exactly the same. The mistress of life, and was seen as the embodiment of joy, love, romance, perfume, perfume, excuse me, dance, music, and alcohol. That last association is very important. So yeah, we'll continue on. Hathor was associated with torquoise, malachite, gold, and copper. Gold is a huge importance that you will find later on for stuff that you can find in the Nordic stuff. She was the patron of miners and the goddess of the Sinai Peninsula. Now, this is important because this location is famous for the turquoise and copper mines of that region that is going on there with that, too. Just giving even more of a direct association in terms of something to do with miners as well. She was associated with the Minot necklace, also known as the Great Minot. I find it interesting also that necklace in Sumerian, if memory serves me correctly, maybe Babylonian, that it is called Min. So keep this in mind. This is a very important point for helping us find who Istis is in the Germanic gods and goddesses. The necklace, like a thestrum, may have function as a percussion instrument in religious functions. So there's another association with shamanic stuff, I guess you could say, if trance like states things of this particular nature. Shamanic here meaning an umbrella term, not obviously for the Siberian people where the term comes from. It may have also functioned as a medium through which she transmitted her power. Okay. In many images of the goddess, she is shown offering the necklace to the king. So by giving the necklace away to the king, she's invoking her power to raise him up to sovereignty. That is potentially one meaning of it. The Manat appears to have been associated with such concepts of life, potency, fertility, birth, and renewal, and rebirth of the dead. So huge amount of power that this is associated with. So the sun comes up in the east and it rises there. That makes it that way it's birthed there, and the sun is associated with life. That's how we grow everything, that's how we're able to do our daily things with it. And the darkness is associated with death in the ancient world, especially in Egypt. And when the sun is setting, it is in the west, and therefore death. That's how that's playing out there, and the very short confined version of the stuff or what's going on there. She occasionally took on the form of seven Hathors, which is very interesting, who were associated with fate and fortune telling. Could be the Seven Sisters, it's kind of going on here, which would be the Pleiades. The seven Hathors knew the length of every person's life from the day it was born and questioned the dead of souls as they traveled to the land of the dead. Hathors Associations, part three. Hathor was also a goddess of destruction, and her role as the eye of Ra, defender of the sun god. According to legend, people started to criticize Ra when he ruled as Pharaoh. Ra decided to send his eye against them in the form of Sekhmet. She began to slaughter people by the hundred. When Ra relented and asked her to stop, she refused, as she was in bloodlust. The only way to stop the slaughter was to color beer red in order to resemble blood, and pour the mixture over the killing fields. When she drank the beer, she became drunk and drowsy and slept for three days. When she awoke with a hangover, she had no taste for human flesh, and mankind was saved. Ra renamed her Hathor, and she became the goddess of love and happiness. As a result, soldiers also prayed to Hathor slash Sechmet to give them her strength and focus in battle. Her name is translated as the House of Horus, which refers both to the sky where Horus lived as the hawk slash falcon, and to the royal family. It's a good question. Why did I go so in depth with all this stuff? Well, here's a listing of the attributes and associations. We got ships, we've got life and death, we have prophecy, resurrection, very stars slash constellations, we have cows, we have associated with alcohol, kingship slash sovereignty, the number nine, motherhood and childbirth, destiny. Right? I mean, anybody who's familiar with the Nordic stuff slash Germanic stuff can already kind of begin to see where this is going. We also have vulture slash falcon wings. We have dream interpretation, knots, threads, and weaving. We have association with hair, magical power, dance and music, sexuality and love, judgment of the dead, the planet Venus, star of the sea, an earth goddess, fortune telling, like a mother earth figure, a dog, wolf, or jackal, that she is someone who's a very skilled woman, queen of heaven, crops, fields, and cultivated lands, inundation, rain, fertility, sovereignty, medicine, slash, healing, music, gold, copper, and mining, and of course the Minot Necklace. She's also associated with the length of a lifespan that someone has, seven cities, blood, killing fields, strength and focus in battle, justice slash cosmic order, and then other ones that are more specific, potentially the Pallades, the Orion, definitely the Orion, Sirius, and Virgo, and then wisdom and truth. So potential Norse or Germanic candidates. We have Isa, Ziza, Tisa, and Ifa, which is very interesting in terms of the name association being that way. Jacob Grimm is the from like the Grimm's fairy tales, like Hansel and Gretel, that kind of stuff, for what's going on there and other things that he wrote along with his brother. That they collect, well, I should say compiled and collected instead. He wrote extensively about this and theorized that this particular goddess is who Tacitus was referring to as Isis. Obviously, the name uh fits. We'll have to go and look and at her stories and associations and stuff later to see if that makes any sense or not. You have the goddess Nahalania. She's associated with dogs and the underworld and other things of this particular nature that's going on there. So we know that there are certain things that fit with her. You have Frig slash Saga. Now you might be thinking, aren't they two different goddesses? No, saga is an part of Frigg that's going on there. Saga is associated with prophecy and storytelling. Same thing with Frigg for the prophecy part, and she's associated with inundation waters and whatnot, and that kind of thing that's going on there. Frigg is associated with love, married to the god of the underworld and and well, god of associated with death, I should say, not the underworld that's going on there with it. So there's certain associations that are definitely there that we can look into further to see if she makes the good candidate for what's going on there. You have Edu and her apple. Now, obviously, apples weren't explicitly mentioned for what's going on there, but Idu is kind of in a way the mother of all the gods and goddesses that cannot exist without her. Specifically the apples that she gives them. Without her, they all die. She is married to Bragi, the goddess, the god of poetry. So that gives us certain aspects that we're looking for in terms of music and prophecy and whatnot. And she is known as the skilled woman for what's going on there. So there are certain associations with her. Freya obviously has associations that are being done with it. She has the ships, she has fertility that are associated with it. She has a necklace, things of this nature. So these are all potential candidates that we can be looking into in the next episode for what's going on there. This one was just to set everything up to see how things went and to get everything situated. The next one will be where we go into figuring out who the exact candidate is, if any of them, why they are that particular one, through the various different stories and associations that are going on there. So if you enjoyed this, please leave a like and subscribe for what's going on there. If you're on YouTube, share this with anybody that's there with it. I do encourage people who normally listen to the podcast only on the various different platforms that are out there to actually go to YouTube to watch this, mainly because there was a lot of visual stuff that was incorporated into this to help showcase what's going on here. And I hope everybody enjoyed it, and I'll see you all in the next one.