Mother Mary was the virgin mother of the master Jesus. Every culture in history has had a female figure who represents and embodies the role of motherhood. In Egypt this was Isis or Aset, to the Romans she was Cybele or Magna Mater - The Great Mother - who was also known as Rhea to the Greeks. To Hindu's She is Kali, Parvati and Durga, all forms of Mahadevi, The Great Goddess. Buddhists know Her as the bodhisattva Tara or Quan Yin, the consort of Avalokitesvara...

In Islam She is Maryam, the mother of the Prophet Isa, and to Christianity She is the Virgin Mary, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Miriam. Isis is often known as Isis Myrionymos which roughly translates as 'Isis of the Thousand (or Myriad) names'. Her attributes encompass those of all other Goddesses and it is now common for encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia Brittannica and the on-line Encyclopedia Mythica to describe Isis as being 'identified with the Virgin Mary'.

Many so called 'new age' folk now regard Mary as one of the numerous forms of the Egyptian Goddess Isis. At first, the idea of equating Isis, an ancient Egyptian diety, with Mary the holy Virgin of Christianity and the mother of Jesus may seem strange and to many Christians even blasphemous.

However there is growing evidence showing that perhaps our collective evolution is not as straight forward as one might consider from our apparent fossil records. Many believe that our evolution from Neanderthal to Cro Magnon man was aided by higher evolved beings who were androgenous (both male and female). The ancient Egyptians depicted Isis as the androgenous mother of our race through immaculate conception. Perhaps equating Isis and the Virgin Mary is not so unrealistic after all.

One of Isis' many epithets is Theotokos or Mother of God (Horus)' which is one of the most popular of titles attributed to Mary. Mary is also known as Stella Maris or 'Star of the Sea' while Isis was given a similar title of Pelagia meaning 'of the ocean'. This could refer to Isis/Mary originating from Atlantis which many believe was the true cradle of humanity. It was perhaps here where higher evolved beings catalysed our emergence from mass consciousness to individual consciousness - the transition from Neanderthal to Cro Magnon.

Another title Mary shares with Isis is 'Queen of Heaven' (also a title of lshtar/lnanna) which for Isis reflects her Goddess status as the ruler of all that is while for Mary it represents her assumption and coronation in Heaven as spouse of the Holy Spirit. In other words the bringer of the spirit into man.

With the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century C.E. the worship of Isis was slowly banned. Isis' Temples were destroyed or else converted to Christianity as the new religion travelled the length and breadth of the Empire. The icons of Isis and Horus were renamed as the Madonna and her child. lndeed, in many of the earliest carvings, it is impossible to tell which pair, they depict.

The most familiar of all statues that have survived shows Isis holding her son Horus to Her breast and it is this classic pose which is repeated in Christianity but Isis and Horus are replaced by Mary and the infant Jesus. Indeed, in Orthodox and Catholic icons across the world, Mary is shown holding Jesus in Her arms, the universal sign of motherhood.

In the hard-to-find classic, Anacalypsis, historian Godfrey Higgens writes, "...in all the Romish countries of Europe, in France, Italy, Germany, etc., the God Christ, as well as his mother, are described in their old pictures and statues to be black. The infant God in the arms of his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black. If the reader doubt my word, he may go to the cathedral at Moulins -to the famous chapel of the Virgin at Loretto ...the whiteness of the eyes and teeth, and the studied redness of the lips, are very observable.

There is scarcely an old church in Italy where some remains of the worship of the BLACK VIRGIN and BLACK CHID are not to be met with. Very often the black figures have given way to white ones, and in these cases the black ones, as being held sacred, were put into retired places in the churches, but were not destroyed.

The Black Madonnas originally all had Africoid features. It is believed that Isis incarnated close to the human form of those she was intended to help - since the connections were made with the early Egyptians in North Africa perhaps this is the reason she is depicted as an Africoid Madonna.

Most of the black madonnas were destroyed by iconoclasts. When they were replaced the artists retained the dark skin color but, not being familiar with real Afrikans, gave European features to the paintings. In cases where originals have survived you may witness Africoid features on Mary and her child Jesus, such as the Black Madonna of Nuria, Spain - called "the Queen of the Pyrenees."

Russia's remarkable legacy of Black Madonnas and other Christian icons of dark skin is evidenced in the book, Russian Icons by Vladimir Ivanov, including the feature story of the Spring 1994 issue of Russian Life magazine, graced with a Black Madonna on its cover.

Actually the worship of the virgin, Black "Mother of God" with her God-begotten child, far predates Christianity and prevailed throughout the ancient world. Historians recognise that the statue of the Egyptian Goddess Isis with her child Horus in her arms was the first Madonna and Child. They were renamed Mary and Jesus when Europe was forcibly Christianised.

The worship of Isis and Horus was especially popular in ancient Rome. "Roman legions carried this figure of Black Isis holding the Black infant Horus all over Europe where shrines were established to her. So holy and venerate were these shrines that when Christianity invaded Europe, these figures of the Black Isis holding the Black Horus were not destroyed but turned into figures of the Black Madonna and Child.

Today these are still the holiest shrines in Catholic Europe. Titles such as Our Lady, The Great Mother, are the same titles attributed to Isis. The word "Madonna" itself is from mater domina, a title used for Isis!