Athena Review Image Archive ™
Dionysias: Temple of Sobek-Re at Qasr Qarun
.
The Temple of Sobek-Re at Qasr Qarun (photo: Frith 1862).
Qasr Qarun is located in the ruins of the ancient town of Dionysias, situated on the southwestern end of Lake Moeris (now Lake Qarun) in the the Fayum region. Dionysias lay at the start of the caravan route across the Western Desert to Bahriya Oasis.
During the Ptolemaic and Roman periods there were municipal baths, villas, and two known temples. The smaller of these, the Temple of Sobek-Re, was dedicated to the Fayum crocodile-headed diety Sobek. Built mainly of mudbrick in the early Ptolemaic period at about 330- 320 BC, its rectangular facade had slightly tilted walls. The temple is shown in this photo by Frith after the restoration of its facade, which was missing in the 1798 drawing by the French Expediiton.
The interior contains Ionic columns. Only the square core of the structure has survived with most of its outlying buildings destroyed. The temple interior is has numerous small rooms, some with reliefs carved on the limestone walls, with stairways to the roof.
Copyright © 1996-2019 Rust Family Foundation . (All Rights Reserved).