Edfu Temple Egypt

 

Edfu Temple Egypt 

On   thursday 24 th february  our Nile cruise had stopped in Edfu famous for a 250 BC Egyptian archeological find of an ancient temple .

It was built in Ptolemaic period between 250 to 57 BC  by the emperors Ptolemy III to Ptolemy XII Auletus .

It was a temple  to  the Egyptian God Horus and was discovered in 16 th century by a French archeaologist Augustus Marrittte in 1860 from under earth on excavation .

Its one of the best preserved temples of Egypt .

The archeologist found an altar which may have belonged to an earlier temple around 1000 BC  it had a boat full of treasures ,gold coins ,emeralds he promptly took it to France keeping a replica here ,its now at the Louvre museum in Paris .

The temple itself was grand with sandstone etchings depicting the Gods and Godesses the kings and queens thier offerings for the making of the temple etc .

Huge collonades of pillars supported the high ceilings fully etched with figuirines and motifs .

Many of the ceilings were blackened mostly its said due to coptic Christians in early AD hiding from Roman soldiers who had by then conquered Egypt and were ruling it ,at those times Romans were not christians amd used to persecute them .

So the coptic christians hid from the Roman soldiers in such monuments and used to cook food inside causing black ceilings .

They also destroyed the faces and legs of many of the Gods in the walls as they still feared the Gods whom they felt would harm them for turning christians and by blinding them ,removing legs in the  etchings they felt safer .

Later Christianity became official  Roman religion and since Rome was ruling Egypt then it tried to destroy the temple etchings by using fire and hence burnt ceilings ,it destroyed the etchings and temple was abandoned and slowly with time got buried in sand amd alluvia from Nile floods till the French archeologist unearthed it .

The temple entry ticket was 180 Egyptian Pounds around 400 INR  and it included a horse cart ride to site from cruise of course one needed to tip the poor driver around 10 pounds each ie Rs 30 only .

It was a nice small outing .

We stopped in noon at Esna another intresting place by evening we should reach Luxor .

We had the hot air baloon scheduled at dawn next day and then visit to Luxor temples on both banks .

We would  leave the  cruise on saturday visit some more of luxor and take our overnight train to Cairo .

Two more days in Cairo we would fly back to Cochin via Doha .

Kom Ombo temple

The Pyramids is what one thinks of when one thinks of Egypt .There is nothing  wrong in thinking so  , as its the  oldest .
The Saqqara pyramids was around 3500 yrs  BC ie add another 2000 years its 5500 years  before 2022 .
The Man lion Sphinx and  the famous Giza pyramids were all of this period .
But Egypt is full of ancient temples , monuments, and  tombs and many are yet to be discovered !!Its definitely not the pyramids alone .
Taking a cruise from Aswan to Luxor is worth it as it stops in several important places .Aswan is in south of Egypt near Nubian lands of past and present Sudan .
Abu simbel is in southern edge .
After leaving Aswan the cruise  first stop at dusk was to Kom Ombo temple .
This Ptolemaic period ( 180 to 47 BC )  came with Alexander the  greats conquest of Egypt and rule for around 200 years..
The temple was initially built by Ptoelmaic VI  Philometer ( 180 to 145 BC ) added by other Ptolemies notably by Ptolemaic XIII Theos Philopator ( 51 to 47 BC ) who built inner and outer Hypostyles .
The strange and unique difference in this temple is its two temples combined into one .One is dedicated to Sobek the crocodile headed God of fertility .Since ancient Egypt lived and thrived in the banks of the Nile and was part of its ecosystem and crocodiles formed an important part probably crocodile was considered and worshipped as a God .
Sobek is also thought as creator of the universe .Sobek is worshipped with his wife Hathor and son Khonsu .
The northern part of temple is to Horus and wife  Tasenetofret and son Panetwaby .Hathor is facon headed .The temple walls had so many etchings or cultic liturgies familiar to those times .A relief in front showed Egyptian calendar of 360 days an year of 16 weeks amonth shown by sti ks till number 9 later 10 is a horse shore eleven on its a stich amd horse shoe and so on .In rear of temple a relief showed surgical instruments used on those daysEgypt had an advanced civilisation centuries back The temple was in a collapsed dusty state with debris due to an earthquake .Some coptic christians in early christian era used to hide in these temples .They often defaced the images of the Gods and Godesses as they were afraid if not the Gods would punish them for adopting an alien faith .Most temples had black ceilings too as they used it for cooking .It was Jaques de Morgan an archeologist in 1893 who restored this temple .More than 300 crocodile mummies were found which are housed in a seperate mummies museum .
An original temple of New Kingdom of Egyptian dynasty much before Ptolemaic perid was supposed to have existed though nothing remains of same The Kom ombho temple was detailed to us very well by our guide Hamdi .We then walked back to berth where our cruise was docked .