Egyptian and British archaeologists have discovered in an ancient military base on Egypt's northern coast a funerary chapel dedicated to the Pharaoh Ramses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BC, antiquities authorities said today.
"The funerary chapel consists of three rooms made of unfired brick and a door frame of hard limestone," said secretary general of the Supreme Council for Antiquities Mr Gaballah Ali Gaballah.
The shrine carried hieroglyphic inscriptions in the name of Ramses II, and was also used as a place for sacrifices to the lion-headed war goddess Sekhmet and her consort Ptah.
"Excavators also found the kitchen used to prepare food for the shrine's priests, kept separate from the much larger kitchen that fed the garrison," said antiquities chief for northern Egypt Mohammed Mr Abdel Maqsoud.
Archaeologists had excavated since 1925 at this site at Um Rakhm some 420 kilometers west of Cairo, where Ramses II had built a fortress to fight off raids from Libyan tribes.
Earlier finds at the site have included remnants of the fortress's brick walls, a sarcophagus in the shape of a Pharaonic citadel, and a 1.2 meter high statue of the military commander, whose baton was capped with the head of Sekhmet.
AFP