very early Seleucid structure, which had been established shortly after the city's foundation. The eponymous indented niches were situated on the -high temple walls—one was on each side of the front entrance, while each of the other sides was sculpted with four more. The courtyard was enclosed on three sides by buildings. To the southwest, there was a wooden colonnade with Oriental pedestals; to the southeast was a series of small rooms and porticoes adjoining a porch with columns of the distyle in antis style, which formed the entrance from the main street; and an altar was situated in the northeast wall. The architecture of the building was entirely Bactrian From the beginning of the excavation, the Persian and Achaemenid elements of the temple's architecture were remarked upon. The identifying "indented niches", along with the building's three-stepped platform, were common features of Mesopotamian architecture and successor styles. Many artefacts were found at the temple, including libation vessels (common to both Greek and Central Asian religious practices), ivory furniture and figurines, terracottas, and a singular medallion (pictured). This disc, which depicts the Greek goddess Cybele accompanied by Nike in a chariot drawn by lions, was described as "remarkable" by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on account of its "hybrid Greek and Oriental imagery". Made of silver, the disk combines components of Greek culture, such as the chlamys all the deities wear, with Oriental design motifs such as the fixed pose of the figures and the crescent moon. The small fragments that remain of the cult statue, which would have stood at the centre of the temple, show that it was sculpted according to the Greek tradition; a small portion of the left foot has survived and displays a thunderbolt, a common motif of Zeus. Based on the apparent dissonance between the Greek statue and the Oriental temple it was located in, scholars have posited the syncretism of Zeus and a Bactrian deity such as Ahura Mazda, Mithra, or a deity representing the Oxus. The thunderbolt has also been used as an attribute for the goddesses Artemis, Athena, or even Cybele; it could even be purely symbolic. The DAFA archaeologists were only able to perform superficial studies of the other two religious structures. The temple outside the northern wall, which had succeeded a simpler and smaller structure on the site, somewhat resembled the grand central sanctuary in architecture with niches in the