25th Century BCE Sun Temple Found in Egypt

The 4500-years old Sun temple was unearthed buried beneath another temple at Abu Ghurab, around 20 kilometres south of Egypt's capital Cairo.

Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed a lost Sun temple which is believed to be 4500-years old. The discovery was made in the show "Lost Treasures of Egypt" on National Geographic, which aired Sunday (November 14).

Another Sun temple was discovered at the same site in 1898. This Sun temple was the Sun temple of Nyuserra, the sixth king of the 5th dynasty, who ruled Egypt between 2400 and 2370 BCE.

"The archaeologists of the 19th century excavated only a very small part of this mud bricks building below the stone temple of Nyuserra and concluded that this was a previous building phase of the same temple…Now our finds demonstrate that this was a completely different building, erected before Nyuserra," CNN quoted excavation mission co-director Massimiliano Nuzzolo.

Nuzzolo told CNN that historical sources suggest six Sun temples were built, but only two have been unearthed earlier.

Earlier, as reported by the Organiser, archaeologists had discovered an 8th century Sun temple in Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh. The Yogi Adityanath government of Uttar Pradesh has planned to develop the area as a religious tourist destination.

In July this year, a three-foot-tall black stone Sun idol was found during an excavation in Bihar's Saharsa district. The idol has lotus flowers in both hands. 

The idol belongs to the Pala dynasty (750 AD). To escape the tyranny of the Islamic invaders, people used to bury their deities under the earth or throw them in wells or ponds.

The excavation was going on in the premises of Baba Mateshwar Dham Temple at Katho panchayat in the Saharsa district of Bihar. It was during such an excavation that the idol was discovered