When Isis made Her entrance into the Greek and Roman world, just as the Egyptians had, those worshipers, too, portrayed their Nubian Goddess as more perfect reflections of themselves.
There are a number of striking Roman statues of Isis in which the flesh of the Nubian Goddess is carved from white marble while Her robes are carved from black.
In Egyptian symbolism, the colors black and green were interchangeable. Everything we associate with the color green—life, freshness, renewal—the Egyptians also associated with green and with black. In scenes of the Otherworld, we often see both Isis and Osiris painted with green skin. Just as the rich black silt from the Nile brings forth bright green plants; the rich darkness of the Otherworld is overseen by the bright Goddess and God of Renewal, Isis and Osiris.
But blackness wasn’t just about ethnic heritage to the Egyptians. It was also symbolic. Black was the color of fertility, the color of the rich, black silt that the Nile deposited on Egyptian fields during the Inundation. Black was the color of the healing statues that were carved with magical formulae and over which sufferers poured water, then drank the magically infused water as a medicine. Black is the color of the heavens at night, from which the Goddess descends to us as a Nubian. Black is the color of the dead, as the resins used in mummification turned dark over time.
As Egypt is an African nation, Isis is an African Goddess. In at least one ancient text, She is specifically a black African Goddess when She says of Herself, “I am the Nubian and I have descended from heaven.” (Nubia was what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubian pharaohs ruled Egypt as its 25th Dynasty.)
Like most people, ancient and modern, the Egyptians depicted their Deities (at least the anthropomorphic ones) as more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect images of themselves. So, of course, Isis was shown as a strong and beautiful Egyptian woman.
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