Death and Eternal Life at Beth Shean

Hagan talks about the molded ceramic figurines of a nursing woman, often identified as Isis or the Virgin Mary. The iconography of a woman nursing a child is common across the Mediterranean, but found special popularity in Egypt, where pagan examples of the Isis lactans show the goddess Isis nursing the infant Horus, and later Coptic examples of the Virgin lactans depict Mary offering her breast to the infant Jesus. Kourotrophos imagery is far less common in Israel and while the Beth Shean terracottas have been variously identified as Isis or Mary, they do not seem to refer to either divine mother, as they show no attributes that suggest an Isiac or Marian connection. The key to the identify of the women depicted by the terracotta figurines may lie in the mythical foundation story of Nysa-Scythopolis and in the city's founder cult.