Edfu

Aug. 9 – Early morning, we reached the temple of Horus, Edfu on a horse carriage (ala Central Park, NY). Of all the temples of ancient Egypt, the one at Edfu is the most complete and best preserved. The reason is that the temple had been totally submerged under the desert except for the very top of the pylon entrance. A small amount of stone had been removed from the exposed part, but when excavated it was found to be in near perfect condition. The temple is dedicated to Horus and was built in the Ptolemaic period. The Hypostyle hall is both imposing and impressive because of its size and condition. An impressive feature of the temple is that nearly every surface is covered by carvings and hieroglyphics, some of which were defaced by Christians as they considered the images to be pagan. The whole temple used to be colored; now only some areas still have the paint after 2,000 years.

At the entrance to the inner temple stands a
magnificent black marble statue of the god Horus.

Pylons and Main Entrance

Carvings on the Outer Wall

Carvings on the North Wall

Courtyard

Columns in the Hypostyle Hall

We spend the rest of the morning on the ship’s deck as it navigates further along the Nile (with the beautiful banks set with palm trees, children playing and swimming, women washing in the water, men working in the fields as they did 3,000 years ago) to Esna. Our ship missed the cut-off hour navigating through the lock at Esna. So we were bused to Luxor under military guard escort.