Archeologists have discovered a 4,500-year-old lost temple of the sun god, in a remote corner of the Valley of the Kings, in southern Egypt.
Built long before the pyramids, the temple may have housed a temple dedicated to the second sun god, Antenor.
On Tuesday, the discovery was announced at a conference in Egypt in the U.S. institute of Conservation Biology. The collective discovery is said to be one of the biggest breakthroughs since the discovery of two temples of the sun god Horus in 1568 BCE, by the great historian Herodotus.
The site in the middle of the desert east of Luxor is some 400 miles from Cairo, which is made even more remote by the high desert winds and lightning storms. The Temple of Antenor was found buried under soil at a depth of 45 meters.
The temple seems to be relatively young and is reportedly “in fine shape,” unlike some of the biggest temples near Luxor, in which a whole civilization was built. The main lake in the desert near the temple is composed of mud that frequently shifts dramatically, even when it is filled, and the site has rarely been monitored by archaeologists.
The chance discovery was possible because of the high concentrations of minerals on the rocks and cliffs. The previous highest concentration of minerals was found in the 19th century at the Giza Pyramids.
Steven Reeves, an Egyptologist at Cambridge, said in a statement that the temple probably had “great cultural significance,” but “it was never given its proper place in the landscape or given the recognition it deserves as such.”