Sun temple largest ever to be found
CAIRO: A popular outdoor market in the east of Egypt's capital city will be shut down after archaeologists discovered a pharaonic sun temple with large statues believed to be of King Ramses II beneath it.
The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the partially uncovered site is the largest sun temple ever found in the Aim Shams and Matariya districts, where the ancient city of Heliopolis, the centre of pharaonic sun worship, was discovered.
King Ramses II, who ruled Egypt for 57 years from 1270 to 1213BC, had erected monuments up and down the Nile with records of his achievements, as well as building temples - including Abu Simbel, erected near what is now Egypt's southern border.
Numerous temples to Egypt's sun gods - particularly the chief god Ra - were built in ancient Heliopolis. But little remains of what was one of the ancient Egyptians' most sacred cities.
Among the artefacts found under the Souq al-Khamis market was a pink granite statue weighing about five tonnes whose features "resemble those of Ramses II", Dr Hawass said.
Also found was a 1.5-metre-high statue of a seated figure with hieroglyphics that include three cartouches with the name of Ramses II, and a three-tonne head of a royal statue. The temple floor of green pavement stones has also been uncovered.
An Egyptian team working in co-operation with the German Archaeological Mission in Egypt discovered the site under the Souq al-Khamis market.
"The market has to be removed", Dr Hawass said. "Other significant discoveries might be waiting to be excavated now … We are planning to make the whole area a tourists' and archaeological site."