The Temple of Isis is one of the best-preserved religious buildings at Pompeii and gives a vivid sense of how the city's religious life mixed Roman, Greek, and Egyptian traditions. Isis, an Egyptian goddess of magic and rebirth, had an enormous following in first-century Pompeii — her cult was particularly popular with women, freedmen, and merchants who traded across the Mediterranean.
The temple was rebuilt after the earthquake of 62 AD by a wealthy freedman on behalf of his son, who was made a citizen of Pompeii as a reward. The inscription recording this act of public benefaction survives. The shrine has a small stone reservoir for sacred Nile water (used in purification rituals) and the walls were covered in Egyptian-themed paintings, most now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.