The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities revealed in August the discovery of the first and largest astronomical observatory from their ancient empire.
The roughly 2,600-year-old structure was built of mud bricks and used to watch and record the movement of the sun and stars in the ancient city of Buto, known today as Tell Al-Faraeen, according to an official statement from the ministry . It was initially found three years ago but only revealed in August. The site features a 9,150 square-foot L-shaped building with an east-facing entrance.
The entryway, known as a pylon, leads to an area where sunlight would have tracked the early astronomer — typically a priest known as an “smn pe” — as they observed the sun and stars, Egyptian archaeological mission lead Hossam Ghonim told Live Science.
Study Disputes Big Archaeology’s Ideas On How The Pyramids Were Really Builthttps://t.co/ujR1HyNvzj
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“Everything we found shattered our expectations,” Ghonim said. The team initially thought they’d uncovered a temple. But artifacts and other symbology within the site soon revealed how meteoric this discovery really was.
One of the biggest finds was a huge sundial, when coupled with other discoveries, led researchers to realize this was a center of scientific importance. (RELATED: 5,000-Year-Old Discovery Of Pollution At The Great Pyramids Up-Ends Everything We Thought We Knew About Ancient Egypt)
“Along the hall’s northern side, we discovered a slanted stone sundial — a sun shadow clock that used the shifting angles of the sun’s shadows to determine sunrise, noon and sunset — a simple yet profound method,” Ghonim added. The interesting part of this discovery, at least to me, is how it yet again shows how technology and knowledge keeps getting older.
