I have attached two pictures that I found. The first picture is a fresco from Pompeii, Italy from the 1st century BC. Isis is recieving Io. I am not sure of the relationship. They appear to be twins.

In the 2nd picture is a mosaic from the 2nd century AD located in Antioch, Turkey. The information does not state who the woman in the mosaic is. I compared the 2 pictures and noticed that the woman in the mosaic looks almost exactly like the Isis or Io from the fresco in Pompeii which is supposed to be from 300 years earlier.

In the Antioch, Turkey mosaic it is not clear if the woman would be Isis or Io when compared to the fresco from Pompeii, Italy. In the mosaic the woman's skin is a little dark which could compare to Io from the Pompeii fresco. Also, in the fresco from Pompeii, Isis appears to be more feminine than Io. In the mosaic, the woman has more of a stonger appearance so it could be Io in the mosaic. Also Io is dressed more stylish than Isis and the woman in the mosaic is dressed in a way that would compare to Io in the Pompeii fresco. Also the hairline of Io in the fresco compares to the mosaic, so most likely it would be Io.

Was the artist the same person for both the fresco and the mosaic or was the mosaic inspired by the fresco? I would say that the fresco and the mosaic were done by the same artist.

The next question would be were Isis and Io present when the artist did the fresco in Pompeii, Italy and also for the mosaic in Antioch, Turkey?

300 years and Io hasn't aged a day.

Pompeii, Italy Fresco:

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/F41.1.html

Museum Collection: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy
Catalogue Number: TBA
Type: Fresco, Imperial Roman III Style
Context: Pompeii, Temple of Isis
Date: C1st BC
Period: Imperial Roman

SUMMARY
Io is carried before Isis on the back of a dark-skinned Egyptian god. She is crowned with a pair of cow horns suggestive of her former metamorphosis. Isis sits with an adder coiled around her arm, and beside her son Harpokrates with finger pressed to his lips.

Antioch, Turkey Mosaic:

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/...erg-flickr.html

Closer view of an Antioch mosaic depicting an Isiac ceremony, a rite in the mystery religion of the goddess Isis. The Egyptian goddess, who searched for her murdered husband Osiris and brought him back to life, became popular among Romans. Isis' search for her husband was a central feature of her cult and was relived every year in October in a ceremony linked to the fertility cycle of the earth.

In this mosaic, a female figure on the right holds a sistrum, a sacred rattle. Another person wears a white robe with a stole on which there are sun and moon ornaments. Both celestial bodies are connected to Isis. Isis was also associated with Sothis or Sirius, the Dog Star; her husband Osiris is Orion. In the Syrian pantheon many goddesses were equal to Isis, such as Atargatis, whom the Greeks and Romans knew as Dea Syria.

From the village of Yakto, near Daphne. 2nd century AD. Antakya Museum, inv. 849.
Photo courtesy of George Langenberg. Information from Antioch: The Lost Ancient City by Christine Kondoleon.



This post has been edited by tye: Jun 10 2008, 12:17 AM

Most royal houses can be traced back to three ancestors: Atlas, Deucalion 1, and Io


Io

Ancestors and founders of important cities auch as Mycenae, Thebes, and Argos were descendants of Io. These also controlled Crete, Laconia, and perhaps Arcadia. The HERACLIDES were descendants of Io. Their house evolved first in north-east Africa, and in the mideast (Phoenicia).

Io is the first mortal of this line. She is usually regarded as daughter of the river god Inachus, her other genealogies being more uncertain. After Io comes Epaphus 1, king of Egypt and father of Libya. Her descendants are Agenor 1, Belus 1, and Lelex 2. From Agenor 1 descended Europa and Cadmus, which is to say the houses of Crete and Thebes respectively. From Belus 1 descended Aegyptus 1 and Danaus 1, that is, the houses of Argos, and Mycenae.

Perseus 1 (descendant of Danaus 1 and Aegyptus 1), and his own descendants reigned in Mycenae. But during Eurystheus' time or after him Mycenae came under the rule of the Pelopides, who are descendants of Atlas. The Pelopides were expelled by the HERACLIDES after the Trojan War.

The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae.

There might be some confusion about the identity of Io. In the Pompeii fresco, the description states that Io is being taken away and Isis is seated. According to the below explanation, Io is Isis. Also it states that Io discovered the drug of immortality which could explain how Io was alive during the time of the fresco in Pompeii and also at the time when the mosaic was created in Turkey 300 years later.

Was the drug of immortality a myth or did Io/Isis really find a way to live forever - or was she a goddess. Zues was an immortal god that was rumored to have had a relationship with Io and might have granted Io immortality.

There is a story about the churning of the sea of milk where an elixer of immortality was created. Certain gods and goddesses did drink the elixer of immortality.

http://www.maicar.com/GML/Io.html

Having thus settled in Egypt, Io made a statue of Demeter, and this goddess was then called 'Isis'. And after that, the Egyptians also gave Io the name 'Isis', and Io-Isis, they say, was made a goddess by Zeus. Isis is known for having mourned the god Osiris 1, worshipped by the Egyptians, who affirm that Isis discovered many drugs, and was versed in healing, giving aid during sleep while standing above the sick. They say that many who had lost the use of their eyes, or other part of their body, were restored to their previous condition whenever they turned for help to Isis. They call Apollo her son, and they say that it was Isis who instructed him in healing and divination. The Drug of Immortality, which achieves the highest form of healing, was discovered by Isis, but the formula remains unknown for the majority of men, as anyone can notice by himself.

I noticed in the Pompeii fresco that Isis (the woman being abducted ) was described as wearing a crown of cow horns- shown in the attached Pompeii fresco. The below information describes Astarte another goddess with cow horns, also shown in the attached picture of Astarte. Note that the fame of Astarte was officially admitted into the Egyptian pantheon in c. 1500 BCE. The mosaic of Isis in Antioch was created in the 2nd century A.D. That would be about 1,700 years, if Astarte is actually Isis.

I also attached a picture of Ishtar. The below information questions if Ishtar and Astarte are the same. Compare the resemblance of Ishtar's picture to Isis in the Pompeii fresco and mosaic from Antioch, Turkey. Stong resemblance.

Astarte the great Goddess of the Canaanites, Phoenician and Assyrians. She was the goddess of love and fertility as well as War. Her representation was the Eveningstar. Astarte has much in common with Ishtar. Her image was shown with two horns and mostly naked. Astarte had a dove as her symbolic animal.

Quoted from website below:

If Ishtar and Astarte are not truly one and the same, they are at least two very similar expressions of one goddess-oriented religion which prevailed for several millennia in Western Asia. Other related names are Ashdar or Astar, names that were also used for Ishtar. Both she and Astarte had a brother and lover, by the name of Tammuz a.k.a. Dumuzi, a vegetation-god.

Astarte's fame and the religious tolerance of Egypt led to her being officially admitted into the Egyptian pantheon in about c.1500 BCE, though here she was mainly regarded as a goddess of battlefields, soldiers and horses. Elsewhere, her religion embraced sacred prostitution and the Hieros Gamos ritual.

Ancient Goddesses Website:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view...o=88&tt=127

This post has been edited by tye: Jun 10 2008, 10:52 PM

Another mosaic of IO/ISIS. Compare this mosaic from Tangier with the fresco of IO/ISIS in Pompeii, Italy- also attached.

http://home.att.net/~VTangier/mosaic.htm
The universal perception of Tangier is like a mosaic, made up of many little pieces, a collection of many small encounters recorded and passed on by spirits large and small over the centuries.

So it seems appropriate that one of the oldest, most valuable artifacts found in Tangier is in fact a mosaic. It shows the goddess Io guiding a ship and a crew of nymphs through the straits. Some of the tiles are ugly and rough, some bright and shiny; a few sparkle like jewels. Each piece is far less than its contribution to the whole. It is only when you stand back and take them all in together that they begin to illuminate. The power of the whole creates a new metaphor, a fabric with a unique texture and aroma which comes away with you and lingers in the mind.

Tangier or Tangiers is a city of northern Morocco. It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel.

This is another Pompeii fresco which is the scene of Io/Isis accept there is a diffent look than the one already posted.

Jst (Isis) – the female principle of motherhood – is the counterpart of Wjsr (Osiris) – the male power of generation. In Osiris and Isis the ancient Egyptians saw the wills and actions of their gods at work in the everyday miracle of birth. According to their religion and unlike the creation accounts of the Bible, those of ancient Egypt do not seem to have envisaged the possibility of something created from nothing. On the contrary, the Egyptians believed that everything in the Universe came from one single source – much like the Big Bang theory of modern physics. Before the creation, Jtmw (Atum - this original source of all things) existed from all time within the primeval waters in a state of potential inertia. The first act of creation involved the birth of two “children” from Atum – Šw (Shu) and Tfnwt (Tefnut). The creation of a void within the waters produced the necessity of a bottom Gbb (Geb, the Earth) and a top Nwt (Nut, the sky). The creation of the world’s physical structure produced a place within which life could come into being. The children of Geb and Nut are life’s primary forces: Osiris (the power of birth and regeneration), Isis (the principle of motherhood), Sth (Seth - the power of male sexuality), and Nbt-ḫwt (Nephthys, Seth’s female counterpart).

This was a synopsis of the old Isiac myth. The syncretism of the religion of the ancient Egyptians explains not only its polytheistic form but also the ease with which they accepted foreign deities into their pantheon - as alloforms of their own familiar gods (for instance, Baal and Astarte).





In Egypt, the last worshippers of Isis were forced out of the temple in Philae in 537 CE by the Emperor Justinian. The Isiac cult first appeared in Greece in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE; temples were erected in Athens, Eubea, and Delos; aretalogical hymns were written in her honour. Rome adopted her cult (as the universal mother) soon afterwards: mysteries (promising salvation in this world and in the other to the initiated) were celebrated in the Iseum of Pompeii and Roma. And the old myth – of Isis breast-feeding Horus - was then brought back by the Christians as the Marial cult.

In the Egyptian zodiac, Isis takes the place of Virgo. She is represented holding an ear of wheat. In the oldest zodiacs, Isis holds the sistrum – which stands for the naos where Ihy (Hathor’s son) comes in sight. Wheat is an Osirian symbol.

Often transformed into a scorpion, Isis protects the child-god Horus, in other words Pharaoh. Isis wearing a scorpion-headgear is embracing King Thutmose III (Nubian temple of Amada):





Isis is also one of the four goddesses who protect the embalmed viscera of the dead. She then wears on her head an analogous form of the scorpion, as it is clearly shown in this picture taken from the canopy chest of King Tutankhamen:





To make the grain sprout, and thusly to make Osiris create his heir, Isis transforms herself into a bird, and gives vigour back to her emasculated husband:

My earlier post for the Pompeii fresco that is same scene different look did not post correctly. This is the fresco that compares with the earlier attached photo.

the association of isis with motherhood is hilarious, and was a roman innovation because they could think of little else and still cant...they look but still only find the she-wolf is suited to such things...