We woke up on the cruise ship very early, enjoyed a buffet breakfast, and met our guide in the lobby to go visit the dual temple of Sobek and Haroeris in Kom-Ombu.
KOM OMBO, EGYPT:
Located in the town of Kom-Ombo, about 28 miles north of Aswan, the Temple, dating to the Ptolemies, is built on a high dune overlooking the Nile. The actual temple was started by Ptolemy VI Philometor in the early second century BC. Ptolemy XIII built the outer and inner hypostyle halls. The outer enclosure wall and part of the court were built by Augustus sometime after 30 BC, and are mostly gone. There are also tombs from the Old Kingdom in the vicinity of Kom-Ombo village.
The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple built during the rule Ptolemaic dynasty in the Egyptian town of Kom Ombo. Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. The building is unique because its 'double' design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries and rooms duplicated for two sets of gods. The southern half of the temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world with Hathor and Khonsu. Meanwhile, the northern part of the temple was dedicated to the falcon god Haroeris, also known as Horus the Elder, along "with Tasenetnofret (the Good Sister, a special form of Hathor) and Panebtawy (Lord of the Two Lands)."The temple is atypical because everything is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis.
Everything is duplicated along the main axis. There are two entrances, two courts, two colonades, two hypostyle halls and two sanctuaries. There were probably even two sets of priests. The left, or northern side is dedicated to Haroeris (sometimes called Harer, Horus the Elder) who was the falcon headed sky god and the right to Sobek (the corcodile headed god). The two gods are accompanied by their families. They include Haroeris' wife named Tesentnefert, meaning the good sister and his son, Panebtawy. Sobeck likewise is accompanied by his consort, Hathor and son, Khonsu.
In ancient times, sacred crocodiles basked in the sun on the river bank near here. Much of the temple has been destroyed by the Nile, earthquakes, and later builders who used its stones for other projects. Some of the reliefs inside were defaced by Copts (Christians of the Orientatal Othodox - the sect originated in Egypt) who once used the temple as a church. All the temples buildings in the southern part of the plateau were cleared of debris and restored by De Morgan in 1893. A few of the three-hundred crocodile mummies discovered in the vicinity are displayed inside the temple.
EDFU, EGYPT:
And then it was back to the cruise to continue sailing on the way to Edfu to visit the most well-preserved temple in all of Egypt -- dedicated to Horus, the Falcon God. The Temple of Edfu is ;ocated on the west bank of the Nile which was known in Greco-Roman times as Apollonopolis Magna, after the chief god Horus-Apollo. It is the second largest temple in Egypt after Karnak and one of the best preserved. The temple, dedicated to the falcon god Horus, was built in the Ptolemaic period between 237 and 57 BCE. The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Greco-Roman period in ancient Egypt. In particular, the Temple's inscribed building texts "provide details [both] of its construction, and also preserve information about the mythical interpretation of this and all other temples as the Island of Creation." There are also "important scenes and inscriptions of the Sacred Drama which related the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth." They were translated by the German Edfu-Project.
There were a lot of images of animals and we learned about which animals symbolized what and which were thought to be gods. Summary:
Hippos = Bad luck
Beetles = Good luck
The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I's edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391 CE. As elsewhere, many of the temple's carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that was now considered pagan.
Over the centuries, the temple became buried to a depth of 12 meters (39 ft) beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.
Today Edfu is nearly intact and it is the best preserved example of an ancient Egyptian temple in Egypt.
Below is one of the tunnels under the temple. It was dug through the ground and eventually reached the Nile. Depending on how high the water level was inside the tunnel (and thus the height of the Nile that year), that determined how high the taxes were for a given year. The higher the water level, the better the year for agriculture, the more money people had, and thus the higher the taxes would be.
Hand-made exit signs to direct us back to our horse and carriage ride. It was so upsetting to see how emaciated the horses were. You could literally count their ribs and see their bones poking out everywhere. I asked our driver how long his horse or the average horse in Edfu lived and he responded they live very long, like 10-11 years. However, when I looked up how long the average horse lives in a non-abusive environment such as Edfu, it turns out they live about 20-30 years on average (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_lifespan_of_a_horse). Very upsetting.
We rode in the carriage back to the cruise ship, and made it just before the ship disembarked from the port. We were on our way north now to Luxor.
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