| Excavation by F.L.
Griffith in 1887-1888 revealed Ptolemaic blocks from a temple of Hathor.
Sacred cows of this goddess were buried at the site. Rescue excavation
carried out in 1970s by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, in advance
of the construction of a canal that has bisected the site, found burials
from a long sequence of historical periods. The earliest tombs date from
the Old Kingdom, but the site is best-known for the many burials of the
Graeco-Roman period with their characteristic stelae, some of which exhibit
a blending of Graeco-Roman and Egyptian motifs.
See PM IV, 67-8. |
A block of Ptolemy I from the temple at Kom Abu Billo (British Museum) |