A Ptolemaic-Roman Temple Foundation at Tell Timai

Abstract

The mission of the University of Hawai’i at Tell Timai in 2009 began excavating the remains of a limestone temple foundation platform in the north-west area of the site. The foundations had been partially recorded in survey work conducted in 1930 by Alexander Langsdorff and Siegfried Schott, and again in the 1960s by New York University, however no known investigations of the structure were conducted. In 2017 as part of an Egypt Exploration Society Fieldwork and Research Grant, excavations were renewed to finalise the understanding of the temple’s construction techniques, and the date of the temple. The foundations were of a casemate design with internal fills of alternating silt and limestone chips. The ceramic evidence from within the construction fills dates its construction from the end of the Ptolemaic to the early Roman Period, and the temple’s superstructure was most likely taken down and the blocks reused in the late Roman Period (fourth to fifth century ce).