Editing Isis (section)

====Goddess of kingship and protection of the kingdom====
[[File:Abydos Tempelrelief Sethos I. 15.JPG|thumb|right|alt=Relief of a seated woman with an elaborate headdress. In her lap is a child with a cap-shaped crown whose head she cradles.|Isis holds the king, [[Seti I]], in her lap, thirteenth century BCE]]
Horus was equated with each living pharaoh and Osiris with the pharaoh's deceased predecessors. Isis was therefore the mythological mother and wife of kings. In the Pyramid Texts her primary importance to the king was as one of the deities who protected and assisted him in the afterlife. Her prominence in royal ideology grew in the New Kingdom.{{sfn|Lesko|1999|pp=159, 170}} Temple reliefs from that time on show the king nursing at Isis's breast; her milk not only healed her child, but symbolized his divine right to rule.{{sfn|Assmann|2001|p=134}} Royal ideology increasingly emphasized the importance of queens as earthly counterparts of the goddesses who served as wives to the king and mothers to his heirs. Initially the most important of these goddesses was Hathor, whose attributes in art were incorporated into queens' crowns. But because of her own mythological links with queenship, Isis too was given the same titles and regalia as human queens.{{sfn|Troy|1986|pp=68–70}}

Isis's actions in protecting Osiris against Set became part of a larger, more warlike aspect of her character.{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=60–62, 72}} New Kingdom funerary texts portray Isis in the barque of Ra as he sails through the underworld, acting as one of several deities who subdue Ra's archenemy, [[Apep]].{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=73–74, 81–82}} Kings also called upon her [[apotropaic|protective magical power]] against human enemies. In her Ptolemaic temple at [[Philae]], which lay near the frontier with [[Nubia]]n peoples who raided Egypt, she was described as the protectress of the entire nation, more effective in battle than "millions of soldiers", supporting Ptolemaic kings and Roman emperors in their efforts to subdue Egypt's enemies.{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=60–62, 72}}