In order to tell time once the sun set, the ancient Egyptians identified 36 groups of stars in the night sky and used their positions to gauge the hour. Known as decans, each one was associated with an Egyptian god, and the most favored were often inscribed on temples and funerary objects.

Evidence has emerged with the discovery of a religious sanctuary by a team of German-Egyptian archaeologists, one nestled in the cliffs of Athribis, an archaeological site roughly 125 miles north of the city of Luxor. In excavations that have been ongoing since 2022, archaeologists have found two towers that once flanked the temple’s main entrance, which likely remains buried under piles of rubble.

Inside the entrance to one of the towers, researchers found reliefs of Repit, a lioness goddess, and her husband Min, the fertility god, who is accompanied by two decans, one researchers at Germany’s University of Tübingen called “very rarely depicted beings with the heads of a falcon and an ibis.” These reliefs were in keeping with the overall impression that the temple that may have been specifically dedicated to Repit, as shown by other reliefs. The temple is being called the Great Temple of Athribis.

A decan with a falcon’s head carved on the wall of one of the entrances. Photo: University of Tübingen.

Near to this entrance, archaeologists uncovered a small chamber that would have served as a storage room for the temple and once held religious utensils and amphorae, clay jars with two handles.

Newly discovered hieroglyphic inscriptions show that King Ptolemy VIII, the son of Cleopatra and Ptolemy V who reigned in the 2nd-century B.C.E., was responsible for the decoration and likely the construction of the temple. In addition, there are reliefs of a king, possibly Ptolemy, offering sacrifices to Repit and her son Kolanthes.

While only around 15 feet of the towers remain, archaeologists estimate they were once nearly 60 feet high before they were broken up for their stone (in around 752 C.E. according to a coin that was found onsite). The next step is to uncover the temple that lays beyond these entrances. Christian Leitz, the project leader, believes the finely-smoothed limestone blocks on the rock façade make it possible that a temple was cut directly into the cliff face. “The more than four-meter-high find and decorations typical of the upper end of a temple—such as a cobra frieze—indicate that there could be a door behind it.”

The south tower of the temple and the hill behind it, where a sanctuary is believed to be located. Photo: University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism.

The excavation is part of a broader partnership between researchers from Tübingen and those from the Egyptian Antiquities Authority at Athribis, a roughly 75-acre site that includes the temple complex, a residential area, necropolis, and quarries. The area was first excavated in 1907 with modern attention returning in the 1980s.