Archaeologists claim to have found a 4,500-year-old lost temple in Egypt

Archaeologists have discovered what they believe is one of Egypt’s lost “sun temples” dating back to the mid-25th century BC

The team discovered the remains buried under another temple in Abu Ghurab, about 12 miles south of Cairo, I told CNN co-director Massimiliano Nuzzolo, assistant professor of Egyptology at the Polish Institute of Sciences for Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, in Warsaw, on Monday (16).

In 1898, archaeologists working on the site discovered the solar temple of Nyuserra, also known as Neuserre or Nyuserre, the sixth king of the 5th dynasty, who ruled Egypt between 2400 and 2370 BC

Now, discoveries made during the last mission suggest that it was built on the remains of another solar temple.

“The 19th century archaeologists excavated only a small part of this mud-brick building below the Nyuserra stone temple and concluded that this was an earlier phase of construction of the same temple,” Nuzzolo told CNN by email.

“Now, our findings demonstrate that this was a completely different building, erected before Nyuserra,” he said.

Finds include seals engraved with the names of kings who ruled before Nyuserra, which were once used as stoppers for jars, as well as the bases of two limestone columns, which formed part of an entrance portico, and a threshold of limestone.

The original construction was made entirely of mud bricks, Nuzzolo said, where the team also found dozens of beer pots intact during the excavation. Some of the pots are filled with ritual mud, which was used only in specific religious rituals, he added, and the pottery was dated to the mid-25th century BC, a generation or two before Nyuserra lived.

The mud-brick monument “was impressive in size,” Nuzzolo said, but Nyuserra ritually destroyed it to build her own solar temple.

While these temples were dedicated to the worship of the sun god Ra, the king legitimized his power through the temple and presented himself as the only son of the sun god on earth, he said.

“Indirectly, therefore, the main purpose of the temple was to be the site for the deification of the living king,” said Nuzzolo.

Historical sources suggest that six solar temples were built in total, but only two were previously unearthed, Nuzzolo said. From these sources, we know that the solar temples were all built around Abu Gharab, he added.

Nyuserra’s Sun Temple is very similar in design to the mud-brick building, but is larger and made of stone, Nuzzolo said.

The mud-brick building would not have been built by Nyuserra, he added, because Egyptian kings are not known to have built temples from the bricks and then rebuilt them using stone.

“It usually happens that when a king, for some reason, is in a hurry, he builds the monument out of clay bricks with key elements in the stone,” said Nuzzolo, who believes these findings prove “very likely” that some of the Remaining solar temples have also been built with mud bricks and some stone elements.

“This may have made it easier for them to disappear over the centuries, as has many other ancient Egyptian monuments built from the same perishable material,” he said.

“Furthermore, the mud-brick building can easily be demolished and buried under other buildings, as probably happened in our case.”

The team hopes to find out which king was responsible for building the temple through further excavations at the site, he said.

Studying pottery, in particular, will allow them to discover more about how people lived at the time, Nuzzolo added, including what they ate and what they believed.

Nuzzolo and the team’s discovery appeared on National Geographic’s “Lost Treasures of Egypt” program, which aired on Sunday (14).

The excavation is part of a joint mission by the University of Naples L’Orientale and the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Translated text. Read the original in English.