French team finds Persian-era oasis temple in Egypt

CAIRO, Feb 21 (Reuters) French archaeologists have found a temple dating from the middle of the first millennium BC in Kharga oasis in Egypt's Western Desert, the Egyptian state news agency MENA said today.

The temple is at Dush in the southernmost edge of the oasis and dates from the Persian period, it said.

The Persians were active in the Kharga area when they controlled Egypt between 525 and 404 BC and they rebuilt another well-known temple which survives near the main town Kharga.

The MENA report gave no details of the condition of the new temple and officials were not available at the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology, which sent the team to Kharga.

The institute's Web site said that a settlement dating from the Persian period had revealed a temple, some important documents in the demotic script current at the time and traces of the irrigation system which made it possible to settle there.

MENA quoted the local director of antiquities as saying the irrigation works dated back to about 500 BC and that the French mission has also found statues and gold coins from the period.

Dush lies about 600 km south of Cairo and 200 km west of the Nile valley.

REUTERS PDM RN2107