Temple of Debod

The Temple of Debod is an ancient Nubian temple now standing in the Parque del Oeste in Madrid, near the Royal Palace. It was first built in the early 2nd century BC about 15 km south of Aswan, close to the first cataract of the Nile, when the Kushite king Adikhalamani of Meroe raised a small single-room chapel to Amun. Under the Ptolemies it was enlarged on all four sides into a small temple dedicated to Isis of Philae, and the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius completed the expansion. Its pronaos with four columns collapsed in 1868 and is lost. Egypt donated the temple to Spain in 1968 in thanks for help with the Nubian monuments campaign after the Aswan High Dam threatened them; it was dismantled and rebuilt in 1970 to 1972. It is one of few works of ancient Egyptian architecture seen outside Egypt, and its gateways were reassembled in a different order from the original.