Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
ADJUNCT MODULE B: ITALIAN ART
Preferred Title:
Temple of Isis: Portico Frescoes
Alternate Title:
Tempio di Iside Frescos
Image View:
Detail, decorative black band at top of panel (inv. 8607)
Creator:
unknown (Roman (ancient))
Location:
repository: Museo Archeologico Nazionale (Naples, Campania, Italy)
Location Note:
Piazza Museo 19
GPS:
40.853378 14.250486
Date:
ca. 62-79 CE (creation)
Cultural Context:
Roman (ancient)
Style Period:
Fourth Style; Greco-Roman; Imperial (Roman)
Work Type 1:
fresco (painting)
Classification:
Paintings
Material:
pigment on plaster
Technique:
fresco painting (technique)
Subjects:
deities; Egypt--Religion; Roman Empire
Description:
All the temples in Pompeii suffered significant damage in the earthquake of 62 CE; the Temple of Isis (VIII.7.28) had been rebuilt by 79 CE. It stood on a podium, its cella was surrounded by a peristyle of seven by eight columns, with four columns supporting the pediment of the pronaos. The temple was decorated with paintings in a Greco-Roman style with a number of Egyptianizing elements, representing the iconography, rituals and ceremonies in honor of Isis; a shrine to the child-god Harpocrates stands to the east. The followers of Isis in Pompeii formed one of the largest communities of her worshippers in the first century CE. The cult of Isis was part of the syncretic tendencies of religion in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity; the Romans having acquired it from the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordart online.com/)
Collection:
Adjunct Module B: Italian Art
Identifier:
7A3-R-NAM-TI-P-A14
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.

Temple of Isis: Portico Frescoes