Her name meant throne, and in Egypt's Old Kingdom Isis was essentially a magical object: the lap that turned a mortal man into a divine king. This episode follows her transformation into one of the most adaptable deities in history, beginning with the murder and dismemberment of Osiris by his brother Set, her search for the scattered pieces, the invention of mummification, and the conception of her son Horus through sheer grief and heka, the Egyptian force of magic.

We then track her years as a refugee mother in the Nile Delta, the scorpion-guarded confrontation with a wealthy woman, and the ruthless scheme in which she poisons the sun god Ra to extract his secret name. Under the Ptolemies she absorbs Hathor, Demeter, and Aphrodite, becomes Isis Pelagia of the sea, and offers a personal, mobile faith that alarms the Roman Senate before the  ...