The earliest temple was built c. 3200 BC[1] and was little more than a cultic niche lodged between three large natural granite boulders.

The temple was again rebuilt during the Fifth Dynasty, possibly under Nyuserre Ini, at which point the sanctuary located at the center of the rock niche was enlarged.

These were dedicated to the goddess over a few hundred years during the course of the Old Kingdom by both royal and private individuals and comprised mainly small faience figures, showing humans and animals.

In his fifth year of reign, Pepi's successor Merenre Nemtyemsaf I came to Elephantine to receive the submission of Nubian chieftains.

[6] Towards the end of the First Intermediate period, in the early Eleventh Dynasty, the Theban king Intef III totally renovated the temple.

[5] He added new inscriptions and, on the North side, a columned courtyard and a lake part of an installation to celebrate the Nile flood, which the Ancient Egyptians believed, started in Elephantine.

Less than 100 years later, early in the subsequent dynasty, pharaoh Senusret I replaced Mentuhotep's structure with a totally new temple and courtyard.

Indeed, even though these statues were all discovered in the nearby sanctuary of the local saint Heqaib, according to their inscriptions they must originally have been in the temple of Satet.

[8] During the New Kingdom period, the temple was built anew under queen Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC) in the early 18th Dynasty and further enlarged by her successor, Thutmose III.

Shortly before the Persian conquest of Egypt, pharaoh Amasis II (570–526 BC) added a colonnade or kiosk to the temple.