Luxor stele shows Tiberius as pharaoh
A newly reported stone stele from Luxor depicts the Roman emperor Tiberius rendered like a pharaoh, shown standing before the gods Amon‑Ra, Mut and Khonsu. (lavanguardia.com) The Spanish coverage highlights the blend of Roman imperial imagery with traditional Egyptian divine iconography in the find. (lavanguardia.com)
Archaeologists at Karnak in Luxor have uncovered a sandstone stele that shows the Roman emperor Tiberius performing as an Egyptian pharaoh. (english.ahram.org.eg) The slab was found during restoration of the gateway of Ramesses the Third at the Karnak temple complex, in a joint Egyptian-French project carried out between 2022 and 2025. The stele measures about 60 by 40 centimeters and dates to Tiberius’s reign, from 14 to 37 Common Era. (english.ahram.org.eg) Its carved scene shows Tiberius standing before the Theban triad: Amun-Re, Mut and Khonsu. Beneath the figures are five lines of hieroglyphic text recording restoration work on the enclosure wall of the Temple of Amun-Re. (jpost.com) In Roman Egypt, emperors were often shown in temples using the visual language of older Egyptian kingship. At Karnak, that meant presenting Tiberius not in Roman dress or coin portrait style, but as a ruler carrying out ritual duties before local gods. (lavanguardia.com) Egypt had been under Roman rule for about 44 years when Tiberius took power in 14 Common Era, after Octavian annexed the kingdom in 30 Before Common Era. Even so, temple art in places like Luxor kept older religious forms that linked political authority to divine order. (lavanguardia.com) The discovery came out of a wider conservation campaign at Karnak’s northwestern sector, where archaeologists dismantled, documented and rebuilt a damaged gateway whose lower stones had deteriorated badly. The same work also exposed reused decorated blocks from the reign of Amenhotep the Third, pointing to an earlier gateway on the site. (english.ahram.org.eg; jpost.com) Excavations around the gate also uncovered parts of the northern enclosure wall of the Temple of Amun-Re and evidence of several building phases, from the New Kingdom to later Greek and Roman interventions. In 2025, the team also found a paved processional road linking the gate to the courtyard of the Third Pylon. (english.ahram.org.eg; jpost.com) Egypt’s antiquities officials said the stele has been restored and is expected to go on museum display. For now, the find adds one more piece of evidence that Karnak was still being repaired, reused and politically staged under Roman rule, not just remembered as a pharaonic monument. (jpost.com; english.ahram.org.eg)
