During work conducted in 1998 in the so-called “Grande Vestibolo” of Hadrian’s Villa, facing the Cento Camerelle, a vast semicircular exedra was discovered connected to a fence and to two rectangular structures. This is a complex architectural arrangement in which coexist hydraulic elements, the art of gardening, and marble decorations.
Among the finds of exceptional importance are those in Egyptianizing style, such as a fragment of a seated statue of the pharoah Rameses II (1290 – 1224) and various fragments of sculpture of humans and animals. The two rectangular structures are believed to have been two temples situated one in front of the other, decorated with precious marble, also in Egyptianizing style.
This was certainly a cult place tied to the Egyptian world, probably dedicated to the Bythinian love of the emperor Hadrian – Antinoos – who drowned in the Nile in the year 130 and was subsequently divinized. The latter may be testified by the innumerable finds of statues of Antinoos-Osiris. The complex is interpreted therefore as a true Antinoeion datable to the years around AD 135.