Spring in Egypt Part 7 - Edfu Temple

On the second morning of the Nile Cruise we got up early, had breakfast, and got ready for our next adventure. DH was up early enough to catch the sunrise from the deck... What a view!

We have been warned by our tour guide as well as by our friend who were just on this tour the month before that our ride to Edfu Temple would be chaotic but interesting. We braced ourselves and went. I made sure Miss Kiki brought her mask to protect her from dust and smells. I used my hair for protection and DH wasn't so lucky because he had neither a mask nor long enough hair...

A horse carriage took us from the dock to Edfu Temple. The coachman introduced himself as Mustafa. His carriage was decorated with artificial flowers and tassels. It was a short ride to the temple but the streets on either of our sides were dusty and is made of rows of run down buildings.

The air around Edfu Temple was noticeably dustier than in other temples we had been to at the time. Whenever the wind blows you can see the particles dancing around.

Dedicated to Horus, the ancient Egyptian god with a Falcon head, this temple was built circa 200 BC. Similar to those on Philae temple, the many reliefs on this temple were scratched out by people of different religions.

A few things were notable at this temple, the first one being an unfinished wall that gave us an insight of how the bricks were laid out to make the high wall... In the picture immediately below you can see the lower half of the wall was the original bricks from the ancient time and the upper half was a reconstruction.

The pylons of the temple shows Horus in the human body and falcon head form, while on either sides of the openings there were statues of Horus in full falcon form.

Some of the cartouches at this temple were still empty without any ruler's name carved on it. It is thought that it was a time of unstable politics that they weren't sure whose names they should carve on them.

Empty cartouche

At this temple, there were some areas where the original colours of the paints from the ancient times were still slightly visible. It was our first time to see anything like that we were very impressed. The colours we saw were mostly red and blue, such as the winged disc carving on the ceiling.

In a lot of chambers the ceiling were blackened. It was believed that after the cult as fallen people had used the temple as a living quarter, thus using fire indoors for cooking, heating, and light. Another theory is that they were results of an arson attempt by people of other religions.

Pictured below were priests carrying an altar on their shoulders as a procession. If you look closely, each of the robes have layers of carving on it. Those layers actually represent more people next to the ones carved, each standing in a line.

There was a small chamber in the temple that has a painting of Nut, the goddess of the sky. She was pictured with stretched out hands and feet offering protection to all.

On one side of the temple there were carvings of a scene that repeated over and over again with slight changes, which is a form of animation. The scenes told the story of conflict between Horus and Seth.

The Nilometer measures the height of Nile river. The temple of Kom Ombo had an advanced version but this one here is more visible.

The Nilometer

We took some pictures during our free time and then headed back to the carriage station to take one back to the dock. Michael had everything arranged for us, we were so glad that we didn't have to do all the haggling and bargaining.

Natural mask!

Our ride back to the dock was pretty uneventful, I was able to take some pictures from the carriage. I must say, I saw more donkeys in this trip to Egypt than I've seen in my entire life!

So that was our morning in Edfu, thanks for reading till the end. Please stay tuned for the next one!