Editing Osiris myth (section)

===Isis, Nephthys, and the Greco-Roman world===
Both Isis and Nephthys were seen as protectors of the dead in the afterlife because of their protection and restoration of Osiris's body.{{sfn|Pinch|2004|p=171}} The motif of Isis and Nephthys protecting Osiris or the mummy of the deceased person was very common in funerary art.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=160}}  Khoiak celebrations made reference to, and may have ritually reenacted, Isis's and Nephthys's mourning, restoration, and revival of their murdered brother.{{sfn|Smith|2009|pp=96–99}} As Horus's mother, Isis was also the mother of every king according to royal ideology, and kings were said to have nursed at her breast as a symbol of their divine legitimacy.{{sfn|Assmann|2001|p=134}} Her appeal to the general populace was based in her protective character, as exemplified by the magical healing spells. In the Late Period, she was credited with ever greater magical power, and her maternal devotion was believed to extend to everyone. By Roman times she had become the most important goddess in Egypt.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=146}} The image of the goddess holding her child was used prominently in her worship—for example, in [[panel painting]]s that were used in household shrines dedicated to her. Isis's [[iconography]] in these paintings closely resembles and may have influenced the earliest [[Christianity|Christian]] [[icon]]s of [[Mary, mother of Jesus|Mary]] holding [[Jesus]].{{sfn|Mathews|Muller|2005|pp=5–9}}

In the late centuries BCE, the worship of Isis spread from Egypt across the Mediterranean world, and she became one of the most popular deities in the region. Although this new, multicultural form of Isis absorbed characteristics from many other deities, her original mythological nature as a wife and mother was key to her appeal. Horus and Osiris, being central figures in her story, spread along with her.{{sfn|David|2002|pp=326–327}} The Greek and Roman cult of Isis developed a series of [[mysteries of Isis|initiation rites dedicated to Isis and Osiris]], based on earlier [[Greco-Roman mysteries|Greco-Roman mystery rites]] but colored by Egyptian afterlife beliefs.{{sfn|Bremmer|2014|pp=116, 123}} The initiate went through an experience that simulated descent into the underworld. Elements of this ritual resemble Osiris's merging with the sun in Egyptian funerary texts.{{sfn|Griffiths|1975|pp=296–298, 303–306}} Isis's Greek and Roman devotees, like the Egyptians, believed that she protected the dead in the afterlife as she had done for Osiris,{{sfn|Brenk|2009|pp=228–229}} and they said that undergoing the initiation guaranteed to them a blessed afterlife.{{sfn|Bremmer|2014|pp=121–122}} It was to a Greek priestess of Isis that Plutarch wrote his account of the myth of Osiris.{{sfn|Griffiths|1970|pp=16, 45}}

Through the work of classical writers such as Plutarch, knowledge of the Osiris myth was preserved even after the middle of the first millennium AD, when Egyptian religion ceased to exist and knowledge of the [[Writing in Ancient Egypt|writing systems]] that were originally used to record the myth were lost. The myth remained a major part of [[Ancient Egypt in the Western imagination|Western impressions of ancient Egypt]]. In modern times, when understanding of Egyptian beliefs is informed by the original Egyptian sources, the story continues to influence and inspire new ideas, from works of fiction to scholarly speculation and [[new religious movement]]s.{{sfn|Pinch|2004|pp=45–47}}