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60 free Isis Goddess trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Isis trivia quiz covers the great goddess of ancient Egypt from her first appearances in the Pyramid Texts to the last functioning temple at Philae and her long afterlife in Western culture. It follows the Osiris myth in detail: the chest built to Osiris's measurements, the search with Nephthys, the reassembly that became the model for mummification, the birth of Horus in the Delta papyrus and the trick that pried Ra's secret name from him. You will also find questions on her iconography (the throne hieroglyph, the cow-horn sun disk borrowed from Hathor, the kite, the tyet knot of red jasper), her temples and festivals in Egypt and Nubia, and the extraordinary spread of her cult through the Greek and Roman worlds: Delos, Pompeii, the Iseum Campense, Isis Pelagia and the Navigium Isidis, the mysteries described in Apuleius's Golden Ass, and the debate over her influence on Christian images of Mary. There are also questions on Isis in the Renaissance, Mozart's Magic Flute, Blavatsky and modern paganism. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on Isis, the Osiris myth and her temples, and each explanation adds one further detail. If you want the wider pantheon, try our Egyptian mythology quiz too.
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Q 01What hieroglyph did Isis originally wear on her head as a sign of her identity?
A throne
The sign spelled the sounds of her name, and some scholars think she was originally a personification of the royal throne itself.
Q 02During the New Kingdom Isis took on the headdress of which goddess, a sun disk between cow horns?
Hathor
She also absorbed Hathor's sistrum rattle; sometimes the throne glyph was stacked on top of the sun disk.
Q 03Isis and her three siblings were the children of which two deities?
Geb and Nut
They form the last generation of the Ennead of Heliopolis, the family of nine gods descended from the creator.
Q 04Which sister helped Isis search for and reassemble the pieces of Osiris's body?
Nephthys
Their work was the mythic prototype for mummification, and the two goddesses often appear together protecting sarcophagi.
Q 05In Plutarch's version, how does Set trap Osiris?
In a chest built to his exact measurements
At a banquet Set promises the chest to whoever fits inside; only Osiris does, and the sealed box floats to Byblos.
Q 06According to Plutarch, which part of Osiris's body did Isis have to reconstruct because fish had eaten it?
His penis
Egyptian accounts say the organ was found intact; the closest parallel to Plutarch's detail is the New Kingdom Tale of Two Brothers.
Q 07The chest holding Osiris's body floated to which Phoenician city, where a tree grew around it?
Byblos
The local king had the tree made into a palace pillar with the coffin still inside.
Q 08Where, in the developed myth, does Isis give birth to Horus after a long and difficult labor?
The papyrus thickets of the Nile Delta
She then had to hide him from Set and heal him from snakebites, scorpion stings and illness.
Q 09How many minor scorpion deities travel with and guard Isis in one popular story?
Seven
They stung the son of a rich woman who refused Isis shelter, and the goddess then had to heal the blameless child.
Q 10In one myth Horus beheads Isis, and she replaces her head with that of which animal?
A cow
The story is an origin myth for the cow-horn headdress she wears.
Q 11In a famous spell, Isis creates a snake to bite which god so she can extract his secret name?
Ra
She passes the name to Horus, bolstering his royal authority; her magic was said to be 'more clever than a million gods'.
Q 12In 'The Contendings of Horus and Set', Isis tricks Set by disguising herself as what?
A young woman with an inheritance dispute
When Set calls her fictional situation unjust, she taunts him for judging himself in the wrong.
Q 13Isis and her sister were often shown mourning Osiris in the form of which bird?
Kite
The kite's cry may have recalled wailing women, or its search for carrion the sisters' search for their brother.
Q 21Every ten days Philae's priests carried Isis's statue to which neighbouring island, said to be Osiris's burial place?
Bigeh
There they performed funerary rites for the god.
Q 22To save it from the waters of the Aswan High Dam, the Philae temple complex was moved to which island?
Agilkia
Ninety-five structures were dismantled and rebuilt 12.4 meters higher between 1977 and 1980.
Q 23The Kingdom of Kush equated Isis with which figure in its own royal ideology?
The kandake, or queen mother
Kushite rulers built Isis temples as far south as their capital Meroe.
Q 14What is the tyet, Isis's looped emblem often carved in red jasper?
A knot likened to her blood
Also called the knot or girdle of Isis, it may have begun as a bandage for menstrual blood and was placed on mummies as an amulet.
Q 15Which rattle, borrowed from another goddess's cult, became one of Isis's attributes?
Sistrum
Its Egyptian name, sesheshet, imitated the sound it made.
Q 16The Pyramid Texts closely link Isis with Sopdet, the goddess of which star?
Sirius
Its heliacal rising just before the Nile flood tied Isis to the inundation, sometimes equated with the tears she shed for Osiris.
Q 17Which sacred bull worshipped at Memphis was said to be Isis's son, its mother known as the 'Isis cow'?
Apis
It was fathered by a form of Osiris known as Osiris-Apis, the root of the later god Serapis.
Q 18Which Middle Kingdom text tells of Isis serving as a midwife at the birth of three future kings?
Westcar Papyrus
She calls out each child's name as it is born, a sign of her power over fate.
Q 19Which pharaoh of the Thirtieth Dynasty claimed Isis as his patron deity in the fourth century BCE?
Nectanebo I
The Iseion at Behbeit el-Hagar and the temple at Philae both began under his dynasty.
Q 20Isis's sanctuary at Philae, near the Nubian frontier, holds what distinction?
The last one in the land still functioning
Supported by Nubian worshippers, it kept an organized priesthood into at least the mid-fifth century CE.
Q 24Which Greek historian of the fifth century BCE likened Isis to Demeter?
Herodotus
Demeter's search for Persephone paralleled Isis's search for Osiris.
Q 25The first Ptolemies promoted which new god, blending Osiris, Apis and Greek deities, as Isis's consort?
Serapis
Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II were then worshipped in the same temples as the divine couple.
Q 26Which Greek island, a trading hub, was an early cult center that launched Isis's worship into Italy?
Delos
Merchants spread the cults of Isis and Serapis through Greek ports from the late fourth century BCE.
Q 27After defeating Cleopatra, Octavian banned shrines to the Egyptian gods within which boundary of Rome?
The pomerium
Egyptian gods were thus marked as non-Roman but acceptable outside the sacred core; Tiberius later expelled them temporarily.
Q 28Which imperial dynasty of the late first century CE treated Isis and her consort as patrons of its rule?
The Flavians
By the second century Isis was worshipped from Petra and Palmyra to Italica in Spain and Londinium in Britain.
Q 29Which second-century novel ends with its hero Lucius being initiated into the cult of Isis?
The Golden Ass
Apuleius's Metamorphoses gives the only detailed ancient account of Isiac initiation.
Q 30As protector of sailors, Isis was called Isis Pharia, a name referring to what?
The island of Pharos and its lighthouse
As Isis Pelagia, 'Isis of the Sea', she guarded the grain ships that fed Rome.