The Importance of the Role of the Temples of the God Ra' During the Fifth Dynasty 2531-2374 BC

Abstract

The Egyptian ancient kingdom represents the pick of its civilization especially in relation to huge and great architectural monuments which include pyramids, mortuary temples and sun temples.  The sun temples strongly related with the fifth dynasty, where this dynasty united to important position in ancient Egypt, the king and great priest of Heliopolis. This unification leads to merge of cult and kingship. This strongly reflects on the structure and function of the sun temples which represent the sun cult and king divine nature.

      The scholars differ about both the number and the function of sun temples where the evidences indicate to presence of six temples where the discovered is only two temples. In addition to analyzing different opinions about nature of these temples in terms of function and purpose of their construction, where archaeologists disagreed greatly about the purpose of building these temples, especially since the two kings who built the two discovered temples had also built a pyramid and a funerary temple. This sparked great controversy about the role of these temples and the purpose of their existence.

       We concluded that the sun temples shall be a part of a wider architectural structure include sun temple and king pyramid. This collection represents, in general, sun cult and creation legend which represents Atum (sun God) as creator and shepherded of the cosmos. Therefore, the temples and pyramids, in terms of location and design, remained linked to this belief and this land, as if they symbolized the emergence of the universe around the god who stands on the top of “Ben Ben” in Heliopolis. The research also reviewed the extent to which the sun temples were linked in their design and location to the doctrine of the sun, the sanctification of the city of Heliopolis, and clarified the different opinions regarding the possibility of the existence of other temples. So we conducted an aerial survey of the areas where they might be found.