shelidonOctober 25, 20232 Comments on Egyptian Schedule – Day 6

Today we’ll be in the Dendera Temple complex and if everything goes right we’ll be seeing:

1. The Temple of Edfu, dedicated to the falcon god Horus;
2. The Temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek.

1. Temple of Edfu

The Temple was built between 237 and 57 BC, during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, when the city of Edfu was known as Apollonopolis Magna had the god Horus was syncretised with Apollon. Horus was the chief God, by this time in history, and the myth of Isis and Osiris had simply grown to be his backstory. It’s one hell of a backstory, but that’s a topic for another time.

Even considering it’s much more recent than all the stuff I showed you so far, the temple is astonishingly well preserved, featuring inscriptions and depictions of the god’s eternal quarrel with Seth, grown to symbolise the arrival of a new Era in opposition to previous, barbaric times. Another more famous set of scenes involves however the myth of creation: the world is shown covered in water, until Horus lands among the reeds and attempts to separate the land for humans to live on. Enters the snakelike entity called Apophis, who tries to impede creation and is able to instill fear in the heart of the falcon god, at least until Ptah comes to his aid in the form of a weapon. Horus places a falcon in the sky, and its wings create the dome. The sun starts sailing its course. And the temple in Edfu is shown to be designed by Thoth and Seshat, the Ibis god of wisdom and the pelt-wearing goddess of writing.

The temple is massive in size, measuring 76 x 79 meters and rising to a height of 36 meters which is, again, the nave height of Notre Dame. Begun on 23 August 237 BC under the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, it originally consisted of a pillared hall, two transverse halls, and a barque sanctuary surrounded by chapels. It was finished in 57 BC under Ptolemy XII Auletes, also called “the new Dionysus”, a guy whose nickname referred to the flute played during festivals and who must have been fun at parties.
When Theodosius I started persecuting everyone who was not Christian, the temple fell into disuse and many reliefs were either stolen or purposefully damaged by zealots. Luckily enough, the desert sands submerged the ruins and it rested upon a French Egyptologist, one Auguste Mariette, to discover it again in 1860.

2. The Temple of Kom Ombo

Unusual in layout, it’s the second temple in the Dendera Temple complex and it’s commonly called a “double temple”, with a mirrored layout serving the worship of the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and husband of Hathor, and of the falcon god Haroeris, a form of Horus considered the son of Geb and Nut. The latter was hosted on the northern side of the temple, alongside minor worship of a form of Hathor called “the good sister”.

The duality of the layout carries on with a specific characteristic of the worship: if the southern side pertains to universal worship, with Sobek bringing these from the widespread religious beliefs of Egypt, the northern side attempts a syncretic representation of gods from the local area.