Athribis, Upper Egypt

Hout-Répit; أدريبة

Egypt · Sohag

Temple / ritual siteExcavation ongoing
Approximate period400 BCE — 1,050 CEPtolemaic and Roman periods; later uses See on the map ↓

In brief

This Athribis near Sohag is an excavated temple site associated with the cult of Repit and her family. Deposits west of the temple have yielded numerous inscribed pottery fragments documenting daily life.

What was found?

  • 1Inscribed and illustrated ostraca

    These are pottery fragments bearing writing or drawings. They provide a large body of documents for studying the use of writing and drawing practices around the temple.

  • 2Inscriptions of VIII. Ptolemaios

    Hieroglyphs at the temple's monumental entrance identified VIII. Ptolemaios as the king responsible for its decoration. According to researchers, the king may also have commissioned the entrance structure.

  • 3Reliefs of Repit and Kolanthes

    The reliefs show the king making offerings to the lion-headed goddess Repit and her son Kolanthes. They make visible the religious connection between local deities and kingship.

  • 4Pylon storeroom

    The room in the north tower of the monumental entrance was used to store temple equipment and later became a space for storing amphorae.

  • 5Pylon staircase

    The staircase, reached through a separate door in the façade, led to an upper floor that is now destroyed. According to researchers, the upper floor also contained storerooms.

What does it point to?

Athribis shows that worship associated with local deities continued with royal support. The storerooms and ostraca also document the storage of objects and the use of writing around the temple.

What did it teach us?

  1. New inscriptions linked the pylon's decoration to VIII. Ptolemaios.
  2. The pylon was found to contain spaces arranged for storage and access to the upper floor.
  3. The use of pottery fragments as surfaces for writing and drawing was documented.

Images

Athribis Tempel (C) Kolanthes
Christian Leitz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Latest news / selected archive

In 2024, excavations of the pylon revealed newly announced rooms, a stairway structure and inscriptions linking the decoration to Ptolemy VIII.

Record

Culture
Ancient Egyptian; Ptolemaic; Roman
Team / historical
University of Tübingen, Christian Leitz; Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Coordinates
26.5114°, 31.6653°

Sources

  1. uni-tuebingen.de
  2. archeo.ens.fr
  3. en.wikipedia.org

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