Eclipse and Mutation: The end of the sun temple of Heliopolis (Egypt)

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Heliopolis is an icon of ancient Egyptian religion and culture. The cult of Heliopolis explains the political order of Egypt through the myth of creation. Few other places worldwide have a continuous tradition of worship sponsored by rulers for a period of no less than 2,400 years. Its reputation as a source of the wisdom of Ancient Egypt supposedly brought the progenitors of European science and philosophy (e.g. Platon) to this temple and its library. In modern times the urban site of the temenos – sandwiched bet¬ween constructions, mountains of garbage, and a rising groundwater level – was widely considered to be devoid of monuments. The first systematic excavations undertaken by the Egyptian-German Mission (2012-2019) revealed, however, the first evidence the paleo-landscape and topography of the site through time, as well as important individual monuments and features of the 4th–1st millennium BCE.Twilight of a temple: The proposed project (2021-2023) addresses for the first time the architecture and epigraphy of the temenos in its latest phase, representing the last period when it had international fame. The upper layers of the 4th century BCE can still be documented by geophysical survey and excavations almost everywhere at the site. Especially the coexistence of structures and monuments of various periods is still not well understood. The research program will focus on the remains of the main dromos and three sanctuaries that have been identified by geophysi¬cal surveys and sondages carried out from 2017-2019. The project will also investigate the architectural elements preserved in the local storerooms of the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism, with a specific focus on the temple’s last phase. Unpublished Egyptian excavations carried out from 1950-1985 will be the subject of archival stu¬dies. The project will furthermore re-contextualize the considerable number of Heliopolitan monuments that were shipped from Alexandria to Rome and other locations in order to generate a more precise idea about the visual nature of the Heliopolitan sanctuary in Egypt. A subsequent phase of the proposed project (2024-2026) will carry out excavations in the southern perimeter of the temenos with evidence for minor sanctuaries and facilities for ritual preparations.Causal study: A second component of the proposed project investigates the reasons for the historical neglect of Heliopolis. The temple suddenly lost its royal patronage in the late 4th century BC resulting in the reuse and movement of objects during the Greco-Roman Period, while Heliopolis continued to live in the textual culture.Traces of Memory: Heliopolis was the only major sanctuary in Egypt to be disassembled during the Greco-Roman Period, when most other sanctua¬ries in the country remained active. The extent of this re-purposing of the heritage of the site will be comprehensively documented and interpreted in the subsequent phase of the proposed project (2024-2026).