Dimei - Temple

A street 400yd/370m long, formerly flanked by figures of crouching lions, passes the well preserved remains of houses to a platform on which are the ruins of a large temple of the Ptolemaic period dedicated to Soknopaios, a local form of the Fayyum deity Sobek or Suchos, and the "finely throned Isis". The temple, surrounded by a high enclosure wall of sun dried brick, consisted of a number of chambers, the rooms to the rear being built of carefully laid limestone blocks, those in the front part of roughly hewn stone faced with stucco. Only a few reliefs survive; one of them depicts one of the Ptolemies (without cartouche) praying before a ram headed god (probably Amun).