A sandstone block carved roughly 2,000 years ago shows a Roman emperor dressed not in a toga but in the double crown of Egypt, standing among the gods of the Theban Triad. The stela, unearthed during conservation work at the Karnak temple complex in Luxor, depicts Tiberius performing rituals to uphold Ma’at, the ancient Egyptian concept of cosmic order. The scene belongs to a visual tradition that foreign rulers maintained for centuries after the last native pharaoh.
The discovery was announced by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and reported by the Franco-Egyptian Center for the Study of the Temples of Karnak, which led the archaeological mission in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities and France’s National Center for Scientific Research.
Tiberius Among Amun-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu
The carved stela measures approximately 60 by 40 by 10 centimeters, according to the ministry. It shows Tiberius, who ruled the Roman Empire from 14 to 37 AD, wearing the double crown that symbolized the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt. He stands before three deities central to the Karnak religious landscape: Amun-Ra, ruler of the gods; Mut, the mother goddess; and Khonsu, their son. Together they form the Theban Triad.
Below the scene, five lines of hieroglyphs commemorate renovation work on the wall of the Temple of Amun-Ra. The inscription records efforts to protect the temple wall, consistent with architectural evidence the mission documented during the project.
Portraying Tiberius as a pharaoh meant showing him carrying out rituals to appease gods of a land Rome had conquered. Scenes carved or painted in temples were understood as idealized versions of ceremonies that might have been performed in practice, with statues or human stand-ins representing the king and the deities. Temples at Dendera and Philae contain similar depictions of Tiberius dressed as Egyptian royalty and making offerings to Egyptian gods rather than to the Roman pantheon.
A Stela Found Among Mud-Brick Ruins
The stela did not emerge from a pristine temple chamber. Archaeologists found it among the ruins of mud-brick houses and structures dating to the late Roman and Byzantine periods, in an area just northwest of the gateway of Ramesses III. That context speaks to the layered accumulation of history at Karnak, where civilizations did not simply succeed one another but actively built over, borrowed from, and repurposed what came before.
The team had been working since 2022 on the conservation and reassembly of the Ramesses III gateway, a northern entrance to the Karnak enclosure originally built during the 20th Dynasty. The project required dismantling the gateway entirely, restoring and documenting each stone block, then reassembling it using modern methods.
During that process, the team discovered that some decorated blocks in the gateway had been repurposed from the reign of Amenhotep III, who ruled roughly two centuries before Ramesses III. That finding suggests the gateway was first built during the 18th Dynasty and later modified. The team ultimately identified multiple phases of construction spanning from the New Kingdom through the Greek and Roman periods.
The mission also uncovered a pavement first recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century. The paved passage connects the Gate of Ramesses III to the Square of the Third Pylon within the Karnak complex, a route that had been effectively lost to institutional memory for more than a hundred years.
The Foreign Pharaoh Tradition
The representation of Tiberius as pharaoh continued a well-established political and religious practice. From the Ptolemaic dynasty onward, whoever held power over Egypt was expected to inhabit the role of pharaoh in stone and paint, regardless of birthplace or native religion. The ruler was expected to maintain the divine order by being seen as the rightful heir to thousands of years of pharaonic tradition.
Roman emperors appeared on Egyptian coins, their names were written in hieroglyphs inside oval cartouches of the same type used for native pharaohs, and their images were carved on the walls of active temples. Emperor Claudius was engraved on the Temple of Isis at Shanhur, shown raising a temple for the fertility god Min and presenting offerings to him. Trajan appears in a sandstone relief at the temple of Khnum at Esna, smiting his enemies.
These were not merely decorative choices. They reflected a political and religious logic in which the ruler of Egypt, whoever that happened to be at a given moment, was expected to maintain divine order by appearing as the legitimate continuation of pharaonic rule.
The Concept of Maat and the King’s Role
The scene on the stela shows Tiberius upholding Maat, the ancient Egyptian concept of rightness and orderedness that was central to the culture. The hieroglyphic sign for maat is a feather, and the concept was personified as the goddess Maat, usually depicted as a female figure with the feather on her head.
From early in Egyptian history, the king’s chief responsibility was to ensure that maat was maintained in the world. A depiction of a king engaging enemies in battle did not necessarily indicate real combat. It might simply symbolize his maintenance of maat. Similarly, temple walls frequently carried scenes showing the king presenting maat to the gods.
Egyptian temples were understood as the establishment of maat on earth. Within their walls all was ordered correctly, while outside lay chaos. For this reason, temple walls were constructed in undulating courses. By Ptolemaic times, maat was believed to have come down to earth from the sky as a gift presented by the gods, maintained by the king, and returned by him in a good state.
Because the king maintained maat, the period following his death was considered a potentially dangerous time. The next king had to take the throne as soon as possible so that the forces of chaos could have no time to seize control.
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