Archaeologists may have uncovered the entrance to an ancient rock temple during excavations in Athribis, Egypt. Two monumental gate towers, once 18 meters high, flank an entrance that could hide a rock sanctuary hidden behind mountains of rubble. Inscriptions on the gate indicate that this temple complex was built under Ptolemy VIII in the 2nd century BC. was built. In the gate area, reliefs show, among others, the lion-headed goddess Repit and the fertility god Min.
The ruins of the Athribis temple complex are located around 200 kilometers north of Luxor near the village of Sohag. An archaeological site that has only been partially explored extends over 30 hectares. Excavations by a team from the University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities have been taking place since 2012 in order to uncover the suspected temple district, including the settlement, necropolis and quarries. The complex was built between 144 BC and 138 AD, during the time of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. One under Ptolemy XII. The team has already uncovered the temple that was built.
Pylon with monumental gate towers
Now the Tübingen archaeological team led by project manager Christian Leitz and excavation manager Marcus Müller is reporting new finds that indicate the existence of a Ptolemaic rock sanctuary in Athribis. An indication of this is a so-called pylon – a gate system with two flanking towers that is characteristic of ancient Egyptian temples. The entire gate structure was once 51 meters wide; the two monumental gate towers of the pylon are estimated to have been around 18 meters high. Today, however, only around five meters remain of this height. Between the gate towers it is assumed that there is an entrance to a temple carved into the rock, but this is still hidden by high piles of rubble, report Leitz and Müller.
Initial excavations in the northern tower and at the entrance gate have already revealed exciting finds. In the entrance gate, the team found, among other things, reliefs of a king offering sacrifices to the lion-headed goddess Repit and her son Kolanthes. Hieroglyphic inscriptions discovered there also reveal which king was responsible for the decoration and probably also for the construction of the pylon: Ptolemy VIII from the 2nd century BC. During the excavations in the northern tower, the archaeologists came across the entrance to a chamber that was blocked by a ceiling block weighing around 20 tons that had fallen into the sand. After moving this block of stone out of the way using an air cushion, wooden towers and rollers, the team was able to enter the tower chamber.
Reliefs of gods and a chamber in the gate tower
It turned out that the chamber in the north tower of the pylon is around six meters long and almost three meters wide. A corridor led through the pylon to the chamber, so that it was also accessible from the outside. The archaeologists suspect that the chamber was first used as a storage room for temple equipment and later served as a storage area for amphoras. Similar to the entrance to the alleged rock temple, the entrance to the chamber was also decorated with reliefs and hieroglyphs: the goddess Repit can be seen again on one side, while the opposite door frame shows the fertility god Min.
The reliefs of the gods are also accompanied by two rarely depicted creatures, as the team reports: The relief each shows a so-called decan – a star whose rising and setting served to calculate time and which stood for a specific unit of time in Egyptian mythology. The two decan stars on the Athribis Gate are decorated with a falcon and an ibis head. Also unique in Egyptian temple architecture is a second door on the facade of the pylon, which leads to a previously unknown staircase. The archaeologists suspect that it led to the now destroyed upper floor of the tower, where there were probably additional storage rooms.
The archaeological team is currently continuing its excavations in Athribis with the aim of finding evidence of the temple suspected to be behind the pylon. “Finely smoothed limestone blocks on a vertically cut rock facade could belong to a rock sanctuary,” says Leitz. The more than four meter high find and decorations typical of the top of a temple – for example a cobra frieze – suggest that there could be a door behind it.
Source: Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Athribis project