Editing Isis (section)

====Universal goddess====
[[File:Uc2.ark 13960 t8rb76g72-seq 327 (cropped Isis).jpg|thumb|Isis, crowned with the lotus and bearing the sceptre. An intaglio, of Ptolemaic date, in sardonyx.]]
In Ptolemaic times Isis's sphere of influence could include the entire cosmos.{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=52–53}} As the deity that protected Egypt and endorsed its king, she had power over all nations, and as the provider of rain, she enlivened the natural world.{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=42–44, 67}} The Philae hymn that initially calls her ruler of the sky goes on to expand her authority, so at its climax her dominion encompasses the sky, earth, and Duat. It says her power over nature nourishes humans, the blessed dead, and the gods.{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=52–53}} Other, Greek-language hymns from Ptolemaic Egypt call her "the beautiful essence of all the gods".{{sfn|Assmann|1997|pp=49–50}} In the course of Egyptian history, many deities, major and minor, had been described in similar grand terms. Amun was most commonly described this way in the New Kingdom, whereas in Roman Egypt such terms tended to be applied to Isis.{{sfn|Assmann|2001|pp=240–242}} Such texts do not deny the existence of other deities but treat them as aspects of the supreme deity, a type of theology sometimes called "[[summodeism]]".{{sfn|Wente|2001|pp=433–434}}{{sfn|Smith|2010|p=169}}

In the Late, Ptolemaic, and Roman Periods, many temples contained a [[Ancient Egyptian creation myths|creation myth]] that adapted long-standing ideas about creation to give the primary roles to local deities.{{sfn|McClain|2011|pp=3–4}} At Philae, Isis is described as the creator in the same way that older texts speak of the work of the god [[Ptah]],{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=52–53}} who was said to have designed the world with his intellect and sculpted it into being.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|pp=61–62}} Like him, Isis formed the cosmos "through what her heart conceived and her hands created".{{sfn|Žabkar|1988|pp=52–53}}

Like other deities throughout Egyptian history, Isis had many forms in her individual cult centers, and each cult center emphasized different aspects of her character. Local Isis cults focused on the distinctive traits of their deity more than on her universality, whereas some Egyptian hymns to Isis treat other goddesses in cult centers from across Egypt and the Mediterranean as manifestations of her. A text in her temple at [[Dendera temple complex|Dendera]] says "in each [[nome (Egypt)|nome]] it is she who is in every town, in every nome with her son Horus."{{sfn|Frankfurter|1998|pp=99–102}}