Edfou

Edfou ( Behdet , Apollinopolis Magna ) is largest and important temple of the Dynastie of Ptolémées.

It is located on left bank of the the Nile between Assouan and Louxor, with 105 km in the South of the latter and 755 km of the Cairo.

The temple of Edfou was built between -237 with -57; it is one of the temples best preserved in Egypt. It is devoted to God falcon Horus.

The current city is also called Such el-Balamoûn.

History

The god of the city was a god falcon, the Horus de Behedet.

The importance of Edfou continues as of highest antiquity. The antiquated necropolis was found, and one discovered in the desert close the name to Ouadjit, one of the first kings of.

Edfou owes its celebrity, not with her high antiquity, but with the colossal temple which rose, at the time ptolémaïque, in the city.

It is one of the temples best preserved of Egypt and the second building in size after Karnak: 137 meters length, 79 meters of width, 36 meters height for the pylons.

The temple was set up on a temple much older. Its building work was started under Ptolémée {{III}} into -237, to finish under Tibère 180 years later.

The Romans altered it and its structure is almost similar to that of Denderah. Entirely built out of sandstone, this temple is remarkable by its harmonious plan with the perfect proportions, and its exceptional conservation.

Ensablé, it was released by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette.

As much of religious buildings of this time, the temple was supplemented by a whole whole of constructions, entirely covered by the houses with the modern village. Only twenty years ago, only the Mammisi was released. In 1877, Amélia B. Edwards wrote: ten years ago, only the top of the pylons of the large temple of Edfou was visible… Its rooms decorated with sculptures were buried under forty feet of ground. Its platform roof was only one accumulation of bound huts, grouillant human beings, poultries, dogs…

One penetrates in the temple by the large pylon decorated with enormous reliefs showing the king and the gods; the court is surrounded by a colonnade on three sides.

The great interest of this temple also lies in its inscriptions which give by the menu, all the details of the returned daily worship with Horus and also of the ceremonies marking the four greater annual festivals. Walls and columns tell the various rites achieved by the king.

On the enclosing wall, one can see the festival celebrating the installation of the first stone. Are added the accounts of the wars delivered against Seth by Re and Horus and the victory of this last over its enemies (presented in the form of hippopotamuses or of crocodiles). The imposing frontage of the pylon posts the traditional scenes of the massacre of bunches of enemies by the Pharaon holding up his bludgeon. Above the door, the framed winged disc of Uræus, represents Horus appearing between the two mountains of the horizon, evoked by the two solid masses of the pylon. The latter hollow and are served by a staircase reaching the roof, where the priests astronomers went up to observe stars.

Vis-a-vis the pylon, a mammisi is devoted to the god Ihy, wire of Horus and Hathor, conceived at the time of the Bonne meeting : each year, Hathor of Dendérah came in boat to return visit to her husband Horus, accompanied by many pilgrims. This festival is represented with the reverse of the pylon.

Two gantries with composite capitals border the large paved court. At the bottom draws up a superb statue of Horus falcon capped with the double crown, cut in a block of Granit gray. It keeps the entry of the first hypostyle room.

On the right, the small library opens where one preserved the crowned papyruses. While advancing in the temple, the ground is raised, the ceilings drop and the light decrease, so as to make sanctuary an obscure and mysterious place.

The second hypostyle one, more reduced, is flanked on the left room of the solid offerings and a laboratory, and on the right of the room of the liquid offerings. Room of the offerings which succeeds to him, a staircase goes up to the terrace where the ceremonies of the New year took place: the statues of Horus and Hathor, carried in procession, were exposed in a kiosk with the rays of the sun, to reload them in divine energy.

The hall preceding the sanctuary communicates with the small court of the New year and its vault, from which the procession left.

A Naos out of patinated granite still occupies the sanctuary: there, the effigy of Horus, avoided and ointe of balsams received three times per day a service of offerings accompanied by music and prayers. The high priest then affixed on the door of the naos a clay seal and withdrew himself while moving back, erasing the traces of his steps. One of the vaults surrounding the sanctuary shelters a counterpart of the crowned boat (see photo below).

The second hypostyle room gives access to the déambulatoire ranging between the enclosure and the wall of the temple, punctuated waste-gas mains with head of lion.

The staircase of the nilometer is east coast; the Western wall reports the combat of Horus against Seth. Each year, the priests celebrated the Fête of the Victoire of Horus , by transpiercing and cutting up effigies of Seth, hippopotamus out of wax and paste with cake.

Photograph gallery

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