Preliminary results on the study of the orientation of the temple of Ra-Atum at Heliopolis and their historical implications

Aiman Ashmawy (1) , Luc Gabolde (2, 3) , Damien Laisney (4, 3) , Dietrich Raue (5)

1 SCA - Supreme Council of Antiquities
2 CFEETK - Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 MOM - Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée - Jean Pouilloux
5 Leipzig University / Universität Leipzig

A GPS campaign of measures on the site of Helioplis, undertaken in order to document precisely the orientation of the remaining structures of the temple of Atum and to determine the azimuth of its axis, has provided us with improved data. These allowed us to formulate a hypothesis about the date of the temple's foundation ceremony and its direct connexion with the sun rise on the date recorded in the Berliner Leather Roll during the reign of Senuusret I Prolegomene The study of the Egyptian temples' orientation is a field of researches which has already produced fruitful results 5. However, reliable an accurate data on the precise azimuth of the archaeological remains is required before taking into account the possibility that this orientation was connected with potential astronomical events. A program labelled OrTempSol in the framework of the Labex-Archimede at Montpellier, led by L. Gabolde, was thus launched in 2013 with the aim to determine precisely the orientation of some of the Egyptian temples devoted to solar deities, along the same line of work already accomplished at Karnak 6 and at Tell el-Amarna 7. The program focuses specifically on the temple of Atum at Heliopolis and the temple of Amun-Ra at Tanis 8. The present article provides and summarizes the preliminary results obtained at Heliopolis.

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Aiman Ashmawy, Luc Gabolde, Damien Laisney, Dietrich Raue. Preliminary results on the study of the orientation of the temple of Ra-Atum at Heliopolis and their historical implications. 2021. ⟨hal-03381297⟩