Ruled by pharaoh Amenhotep III
Egypt, Apr 15: An ancient city known as Aten was unearthed by an international team of archaeologists recently. The city is 3,300 years old and founded during the rule of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III (ruled 1386-1353 BCE).
Many archaeological missions have searched and failed to find this city, so it was named, The “Lost Golden City. They found rings, scarabs (an ancient Egyptian gem), coloured pottery vessels, and mud bricks bearing seals of Amenhotep III’s cartouche (a carved or cast ornamental tablet in the form of a scroll) which confirmed the dating of the city.
The city’s streets on either side had rows of houses with walls up to “three metres high. There was a bakery and a workshop with a large number of casting moulds for the production of amulets (small piece of jewelry) and delicate decorative items. A mud seal has inscriptions on it that say – ‘gm pa Aton’. That can be translated as the ‘domain of the dazzling Aten’, which is the name of a temple built by Akhenaten at Karnak. These discoveries give a rare glimpse of the life of ancient Egyptians.
