A sun temple is a building used for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, dedicated to the sun or a solar deity. Such temples were built by a number different cultures and are distributed across the world including in India, China, Egypt, Japan and Peru. Some of the temples are in ruins, undergoing excavation, preservation or restoration and a few are listed as World Heritage Sites individually or as part of a larger site, such as Konark.
China
The Temple of the Sun in Beijing, China, was built in 1530 during the Ming dynasty by the Jiajing Emperor, together with new temples dedicated to the Earth and the Moon, and an expansion of the Temple of Heaven. The Temple of the Sun was used by the imperial court for elaborate acts of worship involving fasting, prayers, dancing and animal sacrifices, as part of a year-long cycle of ceremonies involving all the temples. An important element was the colour red, which was associated with the Sun, including red utensils for food and wine offerings, and red clothes for the emperor to wear during the ceremonies. The temple is now part of a public park.
Egypt
In ancient Egypt, there were a number of sun temples. Among these old monuments is the Great Temple of Ramses at Abu Simbel, and complexes built by the Fifth Dynasty, of which only two examples survive, that of Userkaf and of Niuserre. The Fifth Dynasty temples usually had three components, a main temple building at a higher elevation, accessed by a causeway, from a much smaller entrance building. In 2006, archaeologists found ruins underneath a market in Cairo, which could possibly be the largest temple built by Ramesses II.
The sun temples of the Indian subcontinent were dedicated to the Hindu deity Surya,with the most prominent among them being the Konark Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha and the Sun Temple at Modhera, Gujarat, built in 1026–1027. Both are now ruins, having been destroyed by invading armies. Konark was constructed around 1250, by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga Dynasty, and was built in the shape of a large chariot with carved stone wheels, pillars and walls. Surya was an important deity in early Hinduism, but largely ceased to be worshiped as a principal deity around the 12th century. In Manipuri mythology, the sun god Korouhanba is the synonym of the Hindu deity Surya. Other Surya or sun temples in the Indian subcontinent include:
In the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, United States, there is a structure which may have been used as a sun temple by the Pueblo culture, with construction thought to have begun in 1275 AD, although it does not seem to have been completed.
