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Glossing the past : the Fifth Dynasty sun temples, Abu Ghurab and the satellite imagery

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2017

Abstract

The sites of Abusir and Abu Ghurab, with their unique mingling of funerary and religious architecture, and the incredible heritage of written papyrus documents, represent a crucial area for the understanding of the historical, architectural and religious evolution of Old Kingdom Egypt. However, many of their topographical and archaeological features remain unclear, especially as regards the identification of the four missing sun temples, which are documented in textual sources of the time but have been never located.

The present article wishes to further our knowledge of the sacred landscape of the area during the Fifth Dynasty thanks to the combined analysis of archaeological data, the historical cartography of the area, and new remote sensed imagery.