Archaeologists in Cairo have uncovered new evidence that points to a temple dating from the reign of ancient Egyptian pharaoh Rameses II more than 3,000 years ago, the antiquities ministry said Tuesday.
Egyptian and German archaeologists stumbled upon numerous blocks from the temple courtyards and fragments of the temple statuary at the Matariya archaeological site in greater Cairo, the ministry said.
The finds were made about 450 meters to the west of the obelisk of King Senusret I according to the head of the ministry's ancient Egyptian section, Mahmoud Afifi.
The mission also found a group of large blocks with carvings depicting King Ramses II anointing a divinity.
"His name is rendered by a rather rare variant, 'Paramessu', Afifi added.
The recent finds were part of the decoration of the innermost rooms of the temple and further groups of relief fragments attest to king Ramses II as builder of this temple, said the archaeological mission's co-director Ayman Ashmawi.
"It confirms the hypothesis that Ramses II showed special interest in Heliopolis in the later decades of his long reign of almost 70 years," Ashmawi added, referring to one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt,
Ongoing excavations in the southeast of the temple's innermost enclosure had uncovered houses and workshops from the mid-Ptolemaic period, according to mission co-director Dietrich Raue.
Amulets and metal tools were among other finds in the area, Raue said.
