Ancient City On The Nile

An ancient jigsaw puzzle

>French archaeologists have made a major discovery at the San Al-Hagar archaeological site, 70 kilometres north of the town of Zagazig. San Al-Hagar, site of the ancient city known to the ancient Egyptians as Djanet and the Greeks as Tanis, contains the ruins of a number of temples that can be seen in what during the Third Intermediate Period was an important royal necropolis, and is now an outdoor museum.

The French archaeologists were conducting routine excavations in search of the sacred lake of the temple to the goddess Mut. During the course of their work, which commenced last year, the team early this month stumbled upon what are believed to be some of the blocks that once formed the lake's enclosure wall. Of the 120 blocks that the French team has cleaned so far, two thirds bear inscriptions. They expect that further excavations will reveal more blocks.

The minister of state for antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said that early on-site studies revealed that the blocks were engraved with coloured decorations depicting royal figures, which indicated that they dated to the reign of the 22nd (Libyan)-Dynasty Pharaoh Osorkon II. Hawass explained that the blocks could originally have been part of a temple or chapel of Osorkon II and were reused in the construction of other edifices during the Late Period and the Ptolemaic era.

Following restoration, the French team will reconstruct these blocks according to their decoration. Hawass likened this to fitting together a jigsaw puzzle in an attempt to find the original building they once formed.

Philip Brissaud, head of the French team, wrote in his report that the 78 blocks cleaned so far have very distinguished coloured engravings. Two other blocks are inscribed with the names of pharaohs Osorkon III and IV and of Mut, "the lady of Lake Ashur". This meant, Brissaud said, that the sacred lake, which is 12 metres wide, 30 metres long and six metres deep, still existed during the 21st and 22nd dynasties, and that this pointed to the temples' being as important as those at Karnak in Luxor.

Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud of the antiquities minister's office described the discovery as "very significant", and added that it would augment the knowledge about San Al-Hagar. He said the reconstruction of the edifice reminded him of the work at Karnak, also carried out by a French team, to reconstruct the chapel of King Senusert I and the Hatshepsut's Red Chapel.

Abdel-Maqsoud said the Ministry of State for Antiquities was developing San Al-Hagar as a more tourist-friendly archaeological site. The first phase of the project has already begun with a budget of LE50 million and includes the reduction and control of the subterranean water derived from the neighbouring agriculture land and urban settlements. A visitor centre and a visitor route will be also constructed.

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Egypt ; Arabic: مصر‎, Miṣr or Máṣr) is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west. Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its estimated 82 million live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable agricultural land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely-populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta. Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and its Great Sphinx. The southern city of Luxor contains numerous ancient artifacts, such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural nation of the Middle East.

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A classical dictionary containing an account of the principal proper names mentioned in ancient authors [and intended to elucidate all the important points connected with the geography, history, biography, mythology, and fine arts of the Greeks and Romans, Together with an account of coins, weights, and measures, with tabular values of the same.]

Ancient Egypt

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