Medinet Madi

The Temple of Sobek lies in a large hollow in the hills on the edge of the desert, approached from the plain by a paved processional way flanked by lions and sphinxes. The core of the whole complex is the little Temple of Amenemhet III (12th Dynasty), which is of interest as one of the few surviving examples of Middle Kingdom religious architecture. It consists of a pronaos with two papyrus columns and the sanctuary, which has three niches, high up on the wall, for statues of the deities worshipped here. The walls are entirely covered with hieroglyphs and reliefs, unfortunately much damaged but sufficiently preserved to show their high technical and artistic quality. A small Temple of Anubis was built on the rear of the main temple in Roman times.The Ptolemaic extension at the south end of the temple has a number of remarkable inscriptions, the originals of which are in the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria. The two pillars at the entrance to the vestibule of the first of the temple's three courts bear two dedicatory inscriptions in similar terms and four hymns, each of 40 lines, written in imperfect Greek and signed by their author, one lsidorus. The fourth hymn refers to the marvelous exploits of the Pharaoh Poremanre (i.e. Amenemhet III). All these texts reflect the variety of cultural influences to which Egypt was exposed during the Graeco-Egyptian period.

The remains to be seen here are those of the Graeco-Roman settlement of Narmouthis, with a temple founded by Amenemhet III and completed by his son Amenemhet IV in honor of the crocodile god Sobek, his consort the snake goddess Renenutet (Thermouthis) and Horus. The temple, oriented from north to south, was extended under the Ptolemies by the addition of large halls and courts, and some smaller extensions were added in the Roman Imperial period.