“during this year’s research, stone blocks with pharaonic hieroglyphic inscriptions and figural decoration were found at the site of the medieval citadel in Old Dongola. Egyptologist Dr. Dawid F. Wieczorek, working with the expedition, identified them as elements from a Pharaonic temple. According to his assessment, based on iconographic and paleographic criteria (i.e., an analysis of the script), as well as the sandstone blocks’ dressing technology, they came from a structure that dates back to the 1st half of the 1st millennium BCE. These were the times of the XXVth Egyptian dynasty, which ruled over vast territories in northeastern Africa and the Middle East. This is a unique and unexpected discovery, as until now, despite nearly 60 years of archaeological research in Old Dongola, no traces from such an early period have been encountered. Therefore, confirmation of the existence of a Pharaonic temple on the site of Old Dongola, a thousand years older than the city which is dated to the 5th century CE, could shed new light on the history of the site, indicating a much earlier date for its foundation.”—”Hieroglyphs discovered in Old Dongola, Sudan”