Long-Lost Egyptian Temple Found

By Rossella Lorenzi

Remains of the long lost temple of Kheny have been unearthed at Gebel el Silsila, north of Aswan, Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities announced today.

Revealing the foundations and blockwork of the temple, the ruins are one of the few remnants of the settlement of Kheny or Khenu, which is the ancient Egyptian name — meaning “Rowing Place” — for Gebel el-Silsila.

The site, located on both banks of the Nile between Edfu and Kom Ombo, was extensively used as a quarry from the New Kingdom until Roman times.

“We know that huge quantities of sandstone for temple building were quarried there,” Lund University archaeologist Maria Nilsson, director of the Gebel el Silsila Survey Project, told Discovery News.

Indeed, virtually all of Egypt’s great temples, including those at Karnak and Luxor, were built with sandstone from Gebel el Silsila.

“Now this finding changes the history of the site, and it firmly establishes Gebel el Silsila as not only a quarry, but also a sacred location,” she added.

While cult activities at the site were mainly associated with the Nile and its inundation, the principal deity was Sobek, the god of crocodiles who controlled the waters.

Egypt's Widan Al-Faras: The world’s oldest road all but forgotten

Close to Fayoum lies the world’s oldest surviving paved road, threatened by oblivion and neglect

by Mohammed Elrazzaz, Saturday 22 Feb 2014

“The pyramids and temples of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (early mid-third millennium BC) are testament to an epoch of global significance in the evolution of monumental stone architecture. The basalt quarries of Widan Al-Faras and gypsum quarries of Umm es-Sawan (…) were key production sites in the foreground of this transformation to largescale stone quarrying.” — Elizabeth Bloxam and Tom Heldal

You can think of it as an ancient cultural landscape, or you can think of it as a fossil landscape. One thing is certain: it is the world’s oldest surviving paved road, and — if nothing is done to protect it — it will eventually vanish completely.

Widan Al-Faras quarry road was built some 4,500 years ago in the area situated north of present-day Lake Qarun.

As we approached Widan Al-Faras area ("ears of the mare"), easily recognisable by its twin peaks, we knew we had a tough task ahead: locating a road in the middle of nowhere and stretching into infinity. The road was built for moving blocks of basalt from the Widan Al-Faras mines to the shore of the ancient Lake Moeris, the bigger ancestor of Lake Qarun. The road ended in a quay not far from Qasr Al-Sagha Temple, an Old Kingdom temple still standing north of Lake Qarun. From there, the basalt was moved via Bahr Youssef to the Nile, and from there to the Giza Plateau, where it was used in building sarcophagi and floors of mortuary temples around the Giza Pyramids.