Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities announced a discovery in the Sharqia region, northeast of Cairo: a sandstone stele bearing the full text of the Canopus Decree of 238 BCE, the first complete version found in more than 150 years, Youm7 reported.
The Egyptian archaeological mission affiliated with the Council found the stele at Tell Far'oun in the city of Al-Husseiniyah and identified it as a copy written entirely in hieroglyphs, unlike previously known trilingual versions in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek.
The slab measured 127.5 cm in length, 83 cm in width, and about 48 cm in thickness. Its curved upper part bore a winged sun disk with two cobras wearing the white and red crowns, symbols of royal power. The central panel contained 30 lines of hieroglyphic text of moderate workmanship, and the text was deciphered by Hisham Hussein.
The Canopus Decree, issued in the ancient city of Canopus when a council of high priests gathered to honor and sanctify King Ptolemy III, his wife Berenice II, and their daughter, described donations to temples, measures to maintain order, and a reduction of taxes during times of low Nile floods. The decree listed the edicts of Ptolemy III and Berenice, referred to as the Beneficent Gods, and was disseminated in major Egyptian temples. It also aimed to reform the ancient Egyptian calendar by introducing a leap year with an additional day every four years, dedicated to the worship of the monarch, to prevent the Egyptian year from falling behind the solar year. The decree established a new priestly rank and a religious festival coinciding with the rising of Sirius.
“The slab was found inside the temple complex, and it may have been in the workshop attached to the temple during preparation,” said Hisham Hussein, Head of the Central Administration of Lower Egypt Antiquities and Sinai. “Sharqia Governorate had the largest share of discovering copies of the Canopus Decree throughout history, and the discovery reflected the religious and political importance of the governorate across the ages,” said Hussein. “The slab is the third known complete version of the Canopus Decree,” Hussein added.
Two complete copies of the Canopus Decree are on display at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, and found in San al-Hagar in 1885 and in Salabita in 2004.
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