An Egyptian archeological mission has announced their discovery of a temple complex at Tell el-Farama, the site of the ancient city of Pelusium in northern Sinai. The ruin feaures a large circular basin, around 100 feet in diameter, once attached to an easternmost branch of the Nile (now long dry). Surrounding the basin, which would have been filled with water, is a complex system of drainage channels; at its center is a square plinth that may have supported a statue of the local deity Pelusius.

The archeologists—working under the Supreme Council of Antiquities—first discovered the complex in 2019, unearthing a Greco-Roman structure with benches inside it that they originally thought was a civic building. But according to Dr. Hisham Hussein, head of the Central Department for Maritime Antiquities and Sinai and supervisor of the excavation, ongoing excavation and comparative studies have changed their understanding of the site.

“We now know this was a sacred water installation used in religious rituals,” said Hussein in a statement, “not a political structure.” Stratigraphic evidence suggests that the temple was built in the 2nd century BC and remained in use through 6th century AD. It features elements of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman design, characteristic of Egyptian construction from the country’s conquest by the Macedonian Greek general Alexander the Great in 332 BC to the end of Roman rule from 30 BC to 642 AD. Founded around 800 BC, Pelusium was built on land between the sea and the marshes of the Nile Delta.

During Pharaonic times, it was a fortress and customs post on the border with Asia and later a Roman provincial capital. While Pelusium is named after the god Pelusius, little is known about the deity beyond his mention in Greek-Roman philosopher Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris as a child linked to the goddess. As Egyptologist Steve Harvey told the Art Newspaper, “[If] this Roman-era cult structure can be confirmed to be dedicated to the city god Pelusius,” he says, “it would be a stunning example of the presence of a temple for a deity previously attested to only in Classical sources.”