Opposite El-Roda on the east bank of the Nile, set among palms, is the village of Sheikh Abada, to the east of which are the remains of Antinoupolis or Antinoe, the "City of Antinous" built by the Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 130 to commemorate his favorite Antinous. The handsome young man whose features are known to us in many ancient works of
sculpture is said to have drowned himself here in order to avert any worse misfortune from the Emperor, who an oracle had foretold would suffer a great loss. There was an earlier settlement here with a Temple of Ramesses II, the remains of which, with the columns of the forecourt and the hypostyle hall emerging from a mound of rubble, can be seen to the north of Sheikh Abada. When Napoleon's Egyptian expedition passed this way they saw a triumphal arch, a theater and various colonnades which have now almost completely disappeared. The site is littered with broken granite columns and capitals. On a track running east from the mosque, beside the scanty remains of a large building, lies a broken limestone basin which must have had a diameter of some 10ft/3m. The Roman and Christian cemeteries have been much damaged and plundered in modern times.