Updating the GGG information, and the topic never got pinged.Empire of the sunDuring a routine excavation to inspect the site of Souk El-Khamis in Matariya, an Egyptian- German team uncovered the remains of a sun temple dating back to the reign of King Ramses II... Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Al-Ahram Weekly that further excavations revealed a number of talatat (small painted stones) bearing the name of Queen Nefertiti. "This suggests that the monotheistic King Akhenaten once built a temple or a shrine in this area," he said, adding that archaeological evidence of massive constructions of sun temples had been carried out much earlier that the 19th Dynasty... Matariya also contains the remains of the 20.4-metre-high granite obelisk erected by Middle Kingdom Pharaoh Senusert I, along with a modest collection of tables and statues, as well as the ruins of an obelisk belonging to Thutmose II, superimposed with inscriptions of Ramses II, and objects bearing the names of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III. Older monuments include the ruins of a Third Dynasty shrine built under King Djoser, part of a Sixth Dynasty obelisk of King Teti, several Old Kingdom tombs of high priests and a stela of Tuthmosis III. Excavations have also revealed several Ramesside constructions, including temples, a cemetery for Mnevis bulls -- which were sacred to Re -- and a 12th Dynasty donation list from the time of Ramses III, indicating that the temples at Heliopolis were second only to those of Amun at Thebes.
by Nevine El-Aref
Al-Ahram Weekly
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Looks like you unearthed an ancient Free Republic thread! That's in keeping with the original topic.
...and objects bearing the names of Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III.
Confusing... I have noticed many stories written about such topics are so convoluted in chronology...
In this connection it is interesting that Oedipus, whose parentage is regularly ascribed to Laius, is also called in some ancient sources the son of Helios (sun)1 Oedipus descent from Laius is a vital element in the legend; such an unmotivated change in the parentage of the legendary hero seems strange but is understandable if the prototype of the legendary hero was Akhnaton.A royal son and descendent of the god Ra, like other pharaohs before him, his claim to divinity soon demanded an equality with his father, Aton, the sun.
"Thou art an eternity like the Aten, beautiful like the Aten who gave him being, Nefer-kheperu-ra (Akhnaton), who fashions mankind and gives existence to generations. He is fixed as the heaven in which Aten is." 2
So wrote his foreign minister in a panegyric to the king. Next Akhnaton insisted that he had created himself, like Ra. Of Ra-Amon it was said he was the "husband of his mother." The "favorite concrete expression for a self-existent or self created being (was) husband of his mother." 3
He claimed to be Ra-Aton, and in this spirit he also took over his fathers name, Nebmare (Neb maatre), as if he himself was his own father.
1. "Auch ein Helios wurde als Vater des Oedipus genannt." L.W. Daly in Pauly-Wissowa, Real- Encyclopädie der classichen Altertumswissenschaft, article "Oedipus," Vol. XVII, Col. 2108. Cf.Also W.H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, article "Oedipus" by O. Höfer, Vol. III, Cols. 703, 708.
2. The Tomb of Tutu (Davies, the Rock Tombs of el-Amarna, VI, 13).
3. W.M. Flinders Petrie, "Egyptian Tales" (XVIII-XIX Dynasties) (1895), pp. 125-126. More properly translated "bull of his mother."
He claimed to be Ra-Aton, and in this spirit he also took over his fathers name, Nebmare (Neb maatre), as if he himself was his own father.
_
(Velikovsky, Immanuel. Oedipus and Akhnaton; Myth and History. New York: Doubleday, 1960., p 71-72)
Wasn't Akhenaten also Amenhotep IV, and had his father's name (Amenhotep III) effaced from all the temples (which was akin to murdering his soul)???
Behold, I am Set, the creator of confusion, who creates both the tempest and the storm throughout the length and breadth of the heavens.(Naville, Edouard, trans. Egyptian Book of the Dead of the XVIII to XX Dynasties, Berlin, 1886, p. 39.)