Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods - Neo Makri

Yeah, I know you read this title and wondered why.  Or perhaps, is she ok?  After all, these are the wrong gods, and this building is from the wrong time frame (160A.D.) that we would normally consider (2000-100 B.C.E.).  Add to that it was built by Herodes Atticus, a Greek orator and sophist, living in Rome.  

But I read a list of the 6 top sites to see in this area of Attica, and as we had seen five of them already, and this site was coincidentally a 23 min walk from our hotel or an 11 min drive, how could we not?  

So, at 8:30am we arrived, and toured the baths and sanctuary.  You'll hear this common theme that there were a lot of weeds obstructing a clear view of the sites.  Well, this was no different.  I'm sure the baths were opulent in their day, and the sanctuary, modeled on the Serapeum at Canopus, would appear as an island.  We did note the extensive drainage system operating in order to keep the water from eroding the foundation.  The persistent thumping of the pumps broke the silence of the morning, especially along the SW corner.

There are pairs of statues of different Egyptian gods at each of the ordinal points, but these are copies (and obvious copies at that) of the originals in their deteriorated states, while the originals are in the National Archaeological Museum.  So, while I took pictures of all of them, I'lm not going to post them all, because it seems a little disingenuous.  At least with the Porch of the Caryatids, they aged the statues to match the rest of the Erechtheum.

And finally, the baths, such as they are.

I will note that this is not the first Temple to the Egyptian Gods that we encounters--that was at Gortys--but due to the rain, and the fact that it was in the middle of a field, we decided to ignore it.  I was also completely unaware of the hybridization of Egyptian/Greek temples.  Obviously, we know that the Greeks adopted the Egyptian gods (Ra to Apollo) and then the Romans took the Greek gods, sometimes without changing the name (e.g., Apollo)*, but Serapis is a syncretic deity of Greco-Egyptian origin, which gave rise to these types of temples.  

*I am happy to discuss this point in more detail in person, and welcome debate, but for the moment, go with me.