Archaeologists have discovered in Egypt one of the temples of the Sun, built by the pharaohs of the V dynasty -Horab near the Abusir temple complex in Egypt, the ruins of another temple of the same purpose, reports The Telegraph, citing one of the members of the research group, an employee of the Institute for Mediterranean and Middle East Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences Massimiliano Nuzzolo.
“We knew that under the stone temple (Pharaoh V Dynasty – approx. “Lenta.ru” ) Niuserra was something, but we did not know whether this was the previous stage of the construction of the same temple or whether it was a new temple, ”the archaeologist's publication quotes. Initial excavations revealed that there is an older mud brick foundation underneath the temple – suggesting that another building had previously been located on this site. Further cleaning of the site of sand and debris revealed the base of a white limestone column, indicating that the building was, in Nuzzolo's words, “quite impressive.”
To finally make sure that this is another “sunny” temple, the researchers were allowed to discover several beer jugs filled with mud. They served as a ritual gift in the most sacred places for the Egyptians – which allows, according to the researchers, to confidently say that the discovered object is a temple. “There is now a lot of evidence that we are excavating one of the lost temples of the Sun here,” stresses Nuzzolo. According to archaeologists, their find is one of the most significant over the past 50 years.
Who built this temple remains unknown. According to archaeologists, this was most likely one of the pharaohs of the V dynasty, which ruled Egypt in the XXV-XXIV centuries BC after the “pharaoh-builders” of the pyramids from the IV dynasty. From written sources it is known about the existence of six temples of the sun god they built, each of which had its own name. Until now, only the temple built by Niuserra and the temple built by the founder of the dynasty, Userkaf, have been found. Each of them had a large courtyard with a column aligned east-west, and a large obelisk dedicated to the god Ra. It is believed that the temples served the purpose of deifying the pharaohs, during whose reign the veneration of Ra increased markedly.