STONE INSCRIPTION MAY HOLD CLUES TO GREAT TEMPLE OF ANTINOOPOLIS

IN a continuing series of headline-making discoveries in recent days, a team of archaeologists working at the site of the city of ANTINOOPOLIS in Egypt unearthed a cornice stone with an inscription.

This stone ... which has lain undisturbed for centuries ... may hold vital clues to the location of the Great Temple of Antinoopolis in the center of the city founded by Hadrian on the spot where Antinous died in the Nile.

It crowned the top of a large building which had a grand staircase. Archaeologists say it was one of the first stones to be prised off the facade when barbarians destroyed the edifice ... in order to build churches ... or to burn the marble to extract lime.

"As we are cutting back the layer just above the foundation of the building with the staircase," says James B. Heidel, president of the Antinoupolis Foundation, "we are finding some additional blocks outside the foundation that were likely dumped into their current position as the building was being dismantled block by block for the lime kilns or to be cut into smaller blocks for other buildings such as churches."

He adds: "The block in the photo was tipped off the very top of the building at the beginning of the dismantling and lay forgotten in the rubble below until now.  And it's inscribed!"

Countless thousands of ancient temples and palaces were used as "stone quarries" to construct churches, mosques and other structures over the centuries.

Many marble edifices and statues were burned in kilns to extract lime.

So it is a miracle that this inscribed cornice stone has survived. The incription may suggest the purpose of the building.

"This block's form also solves many questions regarding the facade of our building, and (together with several other fragments from the excavation) forms a group of diagnostic blocks just large enough to propose a likely reconstruction for our building's facade," Heidel writes in his latest newsletter.

"Reconstruction drawings for the rest of it will have to wait until the rest of it is excavated.  And the excavation will definitely continue next season if we are allowed permission to work," he adds.

"Looking at the photo, can you tell what part of the building it comes from?" he asks.

This is only the latest discovery in recent weeks ... including
an INTENTIONALLY BURIED STONE STRUCTURE in the heart of the city founded by Hadrian at the spot where Antinous died in the Nile.

While the archaeologists suggest it could be an OSIREION ... symbolic Tomb of Osiris ... raising hopes that this could be the Lost Tomb of Antinous.

The structure was detected with ground-penetrating radar.

It is located near the waterfront peristyle discovered last season.

As a final exciting detail, the stone structure and the arrangement of the surrounding walls indicate an axis which would not only correspond to the grid of the Ramses II temple, but an axis which would enter that temple in the middle of the side of the "hypostyle hall," which is the hall of columns between the back shrines of the temple and the court at the temple's entry.

The building with the grand staircase forms the center of this hypostyle hall.

"This axis is a normal place for the main side entrance into an Egyptian temple precinct," the report goes on. 

"And it appears that this structure, if built by Hadrian, was intended by his designers to be an extension of the Ramses II temple complex."

We know that Emperor Hadrian commanded that a sacred city be founded at the location where Antinous drowned in the Nile.

We also know from an ancient papyrus that an impressive quayside port facility was constructed at or near that site.

Using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), archaeologists found a large square compound of paving stones bordered by columns ... which could mark the site where Antinous drowned.

Heidel, president of the Antinoupolis Foundation, says the discoveries in the past two years at the site have exceeded all expectations.

Finds include ornate capitals which once adorned colossal columns.

Heidel also says LOOTING has abated somewhat following a return to a semblance of stability in Egypt.

Since the revolution in Egypt, which resulted in runaway lawlessness, the site has been subject to "SYSTEMATIC LOOTING" for three years. 

The scope of looting diminished in recent months, although local villagers still search for "trinkets" to sell on the black market, he writes.

Heidel says his archaeologists working at Antinoopolis (also known as Antinoe) say local villagers continue to encroach on the dig site ... ostensibly to create new space for housing and graves.

However, it is an ages-old practice in Egypt for villagers to build houses over places where they can "accidentally" unearth ancient treasures by digging tunnels under their homes. And excavation of new graves can "accidentally" reveal more ancient treasures.