Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – While excavating in Tel Farama site in North Sinai, Egypt an archaeology team unearthed an ancient temple dedicated to God Zeus.
“The remains, made of mudbricks, were found on a 170cm tall mount of debris and rubble.
The mission also found a collection of marble blocks that might have once formed a staircase to enable worshippers to reach the temple.
Credit: Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry
The site is located between the Peluzium Fort and the Tezkariya Church,” Ahram Online reports.
Tell el-Farma, also known by its ancient name Pelusium, dates back to the late Pharaonic period and was also used during Greco-Roman and Byzantine times.
There are also remains dating to the Christian and early Islamic periods.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Monday the temple was not located until the Egyptian mission unearthed a collection of red granite blocks that once formed the temple’s entrance gate, which was destroyed long ago.
The entrance gate comprised a few red granite columns, each 8m tall, and an upper lintel decorated with Roman text about the construction day of the Zeus Caseous (Kasios) Temple.
Zeus-Caseous (Kasios) is a conflation of Zeus, the God of the sky in ancient Greek mythology, and Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus once worshiped.
In 1910, Waziri added, French Egyptologist Jean Cledat uncovered a collection of engraved blocks confirming the existence of the temple in the area, but he could not find it.
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It was not until last month that the Egyptian archaeological mission stumbled upon the blocks of the temple gate.
A pH๏τogrammetry survey and study are currently being conducted on the blocks to understand the architectural design of the temple.
