The lost altar of the Ptolemaic Sanctuary at Hermopolis Magna (Egypt): hypothetical reconstruction and publication of the Rizkallah Makramallah excavation work
Submitted: 2025-05-14
|Accepted: 2025-06-09
|Published: 2025-07-21
Copyright (c) 2025 Virtual Archaeology Review
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Keywords:
Ptolemaic Egypt, Hellenistic Architecture, Excavation Reports, 3D Reconstruction, Hermopolis Magna
Supporting agencies:
The British Museum
Abstract:
The research tackles the study, publication, and hypothetical three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of a mudbrick construction from the Ptolemaic period, situated within a Hellenistic sanctuary at Hermopolis Magna in Middle Egypt. The sanctuary site was excavated in 1945 by Rizkallah Makramallah, a former lecturer at Alexandria University, whose findings remained largely unpublished and obscure until the present study. This study enhances our understanding of the reconstruction potential of the mudbrick construction, proposed as a lost Hellenistic altar, in relation to the broader sanctuary complex. Furthermore, it elucidates the architectural and spatial planning dynamics between Hellenistic sanctuaries at Hermopolis Magna and Alexandria; this provides novel comparative insights into the religious, civic, and ceremonial functionalities of such monuments throughout the Ptolemaic period. With the inaugural academic publication of Makramallah’s excavation findings, derived from his photographic archives now preserved at the British Museum, the Hermopolis Magna sanctuary is reconstructed with enhanced detail and coherence, significantly transforming scholarly interpretations of both the monument and its functional context. The significant challenges faced included the absence of field notes, architectural drawings, or published plans; thus, it was necessary to rely on meticulous visual analyses of the photographic evidence captured from multiple perspectives and in different preservation conditions. These images underwent interpretative and comparative scrutiny; they were integrated into advanced 2D and 3D digital modelling software to reconstruct the monument's form, proportions, layout, and architectural characteristics. The reconstructed structure is subsequently examined in relation to typologically analogous Hellenistic altars discovered in Egypt, mainland Greece, and Asia Minor. This multidisciplinary approach not only revitalises an overlooked aspect of the sanctuary, but also enhances the broader understanding of the topographical, urban, and religious landscapes of Hermopolis Magna during the Graeco-Roman period. This research also proposes novel hypotheses concerning spatial organisation, monumentality, cultic accessibility, and ritual practices within provincial Ptolemaic sacred architecture.
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