Greece & Rome · 2nd century BC to 6th century AD · Tell el-Farama (Pelusium), North Sinai, Egypt
Circular temple of the Nile mud god Pelusius found in Egypt's Sinai
First taken for a council chamber, the 35-metre brick basin at Pelusium, fed by a branch of the Nile, is now identified as a sanctuary used for nearly 800 years.
Official announcement
Tell el-Farama (Pelusium), Egypt Egyptian archaeologists have identified the remains of a temple to Pelusius at Tell el-Farama in North Sinai. Pelusius was the local god of the ancient city of Pelusium. At the centre of the building is a circular basin about 35 metres across, once connected to the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. The site was in use from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD.
Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the find. It followed six years of excavation by a mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Hisham Hussein supervised the mission. He is director of the Central Administration of Lower Egypt and Sinai Antiquities.
The basin was filled with water carrying Nile silt, said Mohamed Abdel Badi', director of the Egyptian Antiquities Department of the council. The team reads this as a deliberate reference to the god. His name derives from the Greek pelos, meaning mud or clay.
Canals for drainage surround the basin. At its centre is a square base, which the team thinks held a large statue of the deity. Entrances open on the east, south and west sides. The north side is badly damaged.
First taken for a senate house, now read as a sanctuary
The work began in 2019. That year the excavators found part of a circular structure built of red brick, no more than a quarter of the whole. At that stage they proposed that it was the seat of the city's municipal senate.
Later seasons exposed the complete building. It was a circular courtyard surrounded by canals and water reservoirs, with a pedestal in the middle. That layout did not fit a political or administrative function.
The team compared the plan with Hellenistic and Roman buildings outside Egypt. They also discussed it with several archaeologists. Among them was Jean-Yves Carrez-Maratray, professor of classical archaeology at Sorbonne University in Paris. They concluded that the building was a sacred water installation used for religious rituals.
According to La Brújula Verde's report, Carrez-Maratray pointed to sanctuaries for river and underworld deities elsewhere in the Greco-Roman world. None known so far matches the scale of the Pelusium building or its mix of influences.
Hisham El-Leithy, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the design combines ancient Egyptian traditions with Hellenistic and Roman styles. He described the find as evidence of Pelusium's status. He also described it as evidence of the city's role in passing religious and cultural ideas around the ancient world.
In use for more than seven centuries
The basin was in continuous use from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD. The evidence comes from the site's stratigraphy, the sequence of layers built up over time. Its architecture changed only in minor ways during that period.
That span runs from the Ptolemaic kingdom through Roman rule into the Byzantine period. The cult of Pelusius therefore appears to have continued after the Roman Empire became Christian.
The building was abandoned in the 6th century AD. La Brújula Verde notes that this was a time of change in the region. The course of the Nile shifted. Earthquakes may also have affected coastal cities of the eastern Mediterranean.
Pelusium stood at the easternmost mouth of the Nile and was Egypt's gateway from Asia. In pharaonic times it was a frontier fortress. Under Roman rule it was a customs centre and port. Near Pelusium, the Persian king Cambyses II defeated the Egyptian army in 525 BC.
Tell el-Farama has produced other finds in recent years. They include a pink granite temple dedicated to Zeus, found in 2022.
The city has been known mainly for its military and commercial roles. The new temple adds a local cult, centred on Nile water and mud. It joins a religious history that also included the gods of the wider Mediterranean.
Hussein said excavation will continue in the coming years. It will explore areas next to the temple and establish the full extent of the religious complex. Restoration and conservation of the remains has begun. The authorities are studying whether to open the site to the public.
Sources
- Remains of the Temple of the god Pelusius discovered in the ancient city of Pelusium in Egypt: a massive structure with canals connected to the Nile (La Brújula Verde)
- Lost God of the Nile: Massive Circular Temple Discovered at Pelusium (Arkeonews)
- 2,200-year-old circular temple dedicated to Pelusius uncovered in Egypt’s ancient city of Pelusium (Archaeology News)
- Sacred Water Complex Unearthed in North Sinai (Archaeology Magazine)
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