Author Description

<b>English summary: </b> Among the ancient Egyptian deities, Isis is probably the most famous, in part least because her cult was spread beyond Egypt and found practitioners in wide-ranging places, was influential in Greek and Roman religion and therefore her cult was also an inspirational fore in western culture, even to this day. This two-volume study is concerned with the development of the goddess Isis in Greco-Roman Egypt and the contemporary diffusion of her cult into the western Mediterranean. The first volume offers a reappraisal of the numerous textual sources related to Isis from Greco-Roman Egypt, after which Svenja Nagel analyzes the development of the concepts of the goddess in their country of origin, which at the time was dominated by the foreign rule of Macedonian and Roman rulers, whose cultural influence was paramount in this period. The focus of the second volume follows up important questions about the inner-Egyptian sources for the adaption of the cult of Isis in the western Mediterranean: how were the form and decorations of the shrines, the private and public dedications, iconography and literary-discursive descriptions viewed and valued by contemporary witnesses outside of Egypt? How were the concept and culture of an Egyptian goddess represented through the interaction with various traditions, even local ones? On the basis of case studies from different regions including North Africa, central Italy, and Germany as well as a thorough consideration of the Isis-related literature of the second century C.E., this study traces the development and meaning of the cult of Isis in the Roman Empire without losing sight of its Egyptian roots. <b>German description: </b> Unter den agyptischen Gottheiten gilt Isis wohl als die beruhmteste, da sich ihr Kult weit uber die Grenzen ihres Stammlandes hinaus ausbreitete, Griechen und Romer nachhaltig beeinflusste und damit auch die spatere abendlandische Kultur immer wieder inspirierte. Die zweibandige Untersu