Finding a lost temple is always exciting. Did someone say Indiana Jones? In this case it is a team of Spanish and Egyptian archaeologists. They found the hidden temple of Ptolemy I.
The archaeological mission consists of 3 institutions. The Egyptian Museum of Barcelona, the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the Supreme Council for Antiquities of Egypt take part. It took 15 years. But they found the remains at the Kom el-Ajmar Sharuna site in Menia Governorate.
Informative texts
They recovered about 60 large blocks of stone weighing about 500 kilos. And in them you can see beautiful decorative friezes and important hieroglyphic texts.
They are “perfectly formed with their deities and hieroglyphics. This is how they tell the story of the temple and the gods it is consecrated to,” explains Jordi Clos. He is the director of the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona. They were part of the temple and very good They were used for the foundations and paving of a Coptic church.
These texts show that the temple was dedicated to Ptolemy I, a general of Alexander the Great. He became the first pharaoh in a dynasty that ended with Cleopatra. And they provide valuable information about the foundation of the building. You mention its name and the gods to whom it was dedicated.
There were graves, mold, grave goods, pottery and a large cave with more than five hundred mummies. The latter “opens up new expectations for the future.” That is how the excavation manager Luis Manuel Gonzálvez sees it.
Modern techniques
To retrieve the remains, the archaeologists used a drainage system. And also techniques that enable photography to create precise three-dimensional models. Then the architectural elements found with fragments of the temple discovered decades ago were integrated.
The Archaeological Foundation Clos intends to organize a temporary exhibition in the Egyptian Museum in Barcelona. You will see replicas of many of the most significant decorated blocks.
The Egyptian Museum to plan Now propose a proposal for the hypothetical reconstruction of the hidden temple of Ptolemy I. It was built 2000 years ago in the town of Hut-nesut, the former name of today’s Sharuna.
