Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a Pharaonic temple in Egypt's western desert that will help their knowledge of oases in ancient times.
"Now destroyed and buried in sand in the middle of the desert, this temple which was about 20 metres (66 feet) long is located 140 kilometres (85 miles) from Siwa on the banks of an ancient abandoned oasis," Italian Egyptologist Paolo Gallo said.
"The major deities of the Egyptian pantheon are represented in very beautiful painted relief" on blocks from the collapsed walls of the temple, Gallo said.
His mission is working to save the most important blocks, which are threatened by erosion due to the region's strong winds.
The oldest part of the temple was built and decorated by the Pharaoh Nectanebo I (380-361 BC), said Gallo, of the archaeological mission of Turin University.
"Thanks to the hieroglyphic inscriptions at the site, we have been able to identify the name which the oasis was given in antiquity: Imespep," he said.
"This find is of considerable historical importance," the archaeologist said, pointing out that it was the first known monument of Nectanebo I in the Siwa region.
Gallo explained that the find "reveals the political will of this ruler to develop the zone of the western oases of Egypt and improve the caravan links with the Nile Valley".
The site itself was uncovered in the 1920s in the oasis called nowadays Bahrein, which means in Arabic the two seas, or lakes. "But the existence of this temple was not known at all", he said.
"The sanctuary was dedicated to a special cult of the god Amun, who was called here 'Amun who gives strength'," said the archaeologist.
Next to the temple, a hall supported by six pillars was added to the sanctuary, probably under the Ptolemies (323-30 BC).
Bahrein, or Imespep, was in antiquity a caravan city on the road between the oasis of Bahariya to the oasis of Siwa, both of which are still populated.
It lies in an area of the western desert called the Great Sand Sea because of gigantic dunes under which the lost army of Persian emperor Cambyses is said to be buried.
Herodotus, the leading source of original information about the history of Greece and Egypt between 550 and 479 BC, said Cambyses' 50,000 strong army vanished there on their way to plunder Siwa.
Cambyses invaded Egypt in 525, overthrowing the native Egyptian pharaoh Psamtek III, last ruler of Egypt's 26th Dynasty, to become the first ruler of Egypt's 27th Persian Dynasty.
Gallo said Bahrein was deserted in Byzantine times (395-640 AD) as caravan traffic declined, and was never populated again because the region is one of the world's most hostile places for people to live.
Gallo created in 1997 the Italian Archaeological Mission of Alexandria (CMAIA) which is also working on Nelson island, off the coast of the Mediterranean city.
It discovered there last November the remains of a Macedonian fortress built by settlers who came with Alexander the Great.
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