Faces of the Goddess Magazine SGC 21

13
K.K. ‘kore’ certainly does not refer to a girl,
daughter or even maiden, and where Kore
Kosmou would then mean ‘daughter of the
Kosmos’ (even though we can find examples of
Athena’s title in Greek as Διός κόρη ‘daughter
of Zeus’ - Aesch. Eum. 415; Soph. O.C. 40).
Another argument in connection to the
maiden-virgin form ‘parthenos’ (cf. Athena
Parthenos) is to reconsider the descriptions of
Horus’ mother, Isis as a Virgin Goddess (hence
K.K. becomes Virgin of the Kosmos). This has
been debated on a number of occasions, partly
because in one tradition Isis is portrayed as
impregnating herself with Osiris’s severed
phallus (NB otherwise not recorded in the
majority of sources but see Figs. 1, 2 & 3).
In some of the iconography and glyphic
depictions associated with Her impregnation,
Isis conceives Horus: ‘whilst she flutters in
the form of a hawk over the corpse of her
dead husband’. In one image from the tomb
of Ramses VI, Horus is born from Osiris’s
corpse without Isis being present. In another
tradition, Horus is conceived when the water
of the Nile overflows and impregnates the
river banks - however, this dark silt is better
associated directly with Osiris as a ‘Black
Neter’ – and which some equate with Isis.
Yet Isis should be associated with the ‘life
giving’ function of the water itself and which
otherwise ‘reflects’ the powers of starry
Nuit and Neith delivered through Isis.⁴ The
‘phallus’ in this case represents the Stargate
or ‘sharp star Sothis’ (Sirius), and from whose
rising signals the Nile flood. The Pyramid
Texts speak of ‘She’ who is ‘great’ (hwn.t
wr.t cf. 682c, 728a, 2002a); however, ‘She’ is
anonymous, but appears as the protector of
the king (viz. the function of Isis, Osiris and
Horus), and where She is explicitly called ‘his
mother’ (809c). On a sarcophagus oracle Isis is
addressed as hwn.t and which also deals with
her mysterious pregnancy. In a text from the
Abydos Temple of Seti I, it is Isis herself who
declares: “I am the great virgin.” The context,
in this instance relates to the actual matrix of
power that Isis Herself controls.
Fig.2 Temple of Seti I, Abydos a scene at the southern wall
of the Chapel of Sokar-Osiris. Isis appears in the form of a
kite (recognized from her name in hieroglyphs
The translation of Kore in the title of K.K as
a girl is therefore impossible, certainly when
we consider that Isis Herself is represented
as an ‘efflux’ (K.K. XXIII.65) that which
emanated from a singular source, and this
would fit well with Egyptian accounts of the
kosmogonical and theoogonical doctrines
from ancient Hermopolis (Ogdoad) and
Heliopolis (Ennead) and compares more
favourbly especially with Isis’ teaching in the
K.K. about the tetrastoicheia (four elements)
and theogony (the birth of the gods) from out
of zep-tepi (first-time) from Atum (NB. in the
Pyramid Texts that Heka – the personification
of magick is present before zep-tepi).
Fig.3 Detail from Fig.2 As-t (Isis’ name shown beside
the bird), and where the scene depicts the conception of
Horus from the dead body of Osiris.