The city off Edfu, towards west lender of your own Nile 56km southern area from Esna and you may 105km north off Aswan, is actually now an important center to possess sugar development and you may ceramic-and come up with. Your website out of Edfu Give are called Wetjeset-hor (classical name Apollinopolis Magna), where the newest goodness Horus try worshipped and you may where in fact the race between Horus and his awesome antique adversary Seth from inside the old mythology happened. Whilst it are well covered by the desert mud and you may individual payment debris, Edfu forehead try went along to by many people very early traveler. The fresh new sand keeps assisted to preserve the structure which was receive getting almost completely intact in the event it was initially cleaned and you can excavated by Auguste Mariette regarding the 1860s.
The present day city derives its name regarding the ancient Egyptian Djeba that has been depending towards a mound to your eastern financial
Of all temple remains during the Egypt, the new Temple out-of Horus in the Edfu is among the most really-preserved and also the singular we all know to own started completed. Crafted from sandstone reduces the huge Ptolemaic forehead try created more than the website away from a smaller earlier temple, built east so you can west, to the river. The brand new later on construction face northern to help you south and you may departs the latest ruined remains of your own older temple pylon to be seen on the eastern region of the earliest court. Of strengthening texts in later on Ptolemaic forehead and this survives today, we realize this particular are going from the Ptolemy III Euergetes I when you look at the 237 BC, however, was not accomplished until 57 BC.
Little known regarding first temple of Horus during the Edfu, but there is however inscriptional proof that The fresh new Kingdom rulers Seti I, Rameses II and you will III performed building work there
Up until now, folk contacted the temple past the massive housing wall surface into western front, carved that have numbers of your own Ptolemaic kings providing to several deities. There clearly was today a freshly developed mentor playground, cafeteria and unlock-heavens museum that leads to the front of temple. The initial construction i arrived at, in the southern area-west corner till the great forehead pylon, is a rectangular colonnaded building unusual in order to Graeco-Roman temples, called a good mammisi or birth-home, designed to commemorate the fresh divine delivery off Horus. The Roman mammisi at Dendera is actually modelled on this build. Reliefs inform you the fresh god Bes, beginning views therefore the newborn young buck regarding Horus and Hathor, Ihi (Harsomptus), nursed by Hathor on the marshes.
Carvings toward enormous dual towers of your own 36m high access pylon are nearly echo photos of any most other towards traditional views of the king smiting his opposition ahead of Horus. We are able to also certainly comprehend the mast grooves with the su Arapski Еѕene vruД‡e flags that will enjoys fluttered at the entrance. One or two sculptures of one’s Horus falcon sit until the fundamental portal. Inside entry is a flat courtyard flanked by colonnades towards the fresh eastern and you may western as well as on the newest southern area which portrays relief carvings of the ‘Meal of the Breathtaking Meeting’. This is a lengthy and you may essential festival the spot where the cult statue out-of Hathor off Dendera try delivered to Edfu towards a barge having far complex routine and occasion, to meet their own consort Horus because of their annual reunion. Almost every other ceremonies of festival can be seen around the wall space of the courtyard.
Ahead ‘s the head forehead facade facing and this really stands the brand new famous colossal black granite sculpture from Horus due to the fact a falcon, using brand new twice top regarding Top minimizing Egypt. The fresh new facade provides monitor structure having interested columns regarding the typical type of Late Several months and you will Ptolemaic temples.