The town out of Edfu, for the western financial of your Nile 56km south of Esna and 105km northern out-of Aswan, are now an important middle to own glucose manufacturing and you will ceramic-while making. Your website out-of Edfu Tell is actually called Wetjeset-hor (traditional term Apollinopolis Magna), the place where the fresh new god Horus was worshipped and you will where in fact the competition between Horus with his conventional opponent Seth within the ancient myths occurred. Whilst it is actually well-covered by wilderness mud and you may person payment dust, Edfu temple is decided to go to by many very early traveler. The mud keeps assisted to preserve the structure which was receive as almost entirely unchanged if it was initially removed and you can excavated of the Auguste Mariette in the 1860s.
The present day city comes its label regarding the ancient Egyptian Djeba which was dependent towards an excellent mound on east lender
Of the many forehead stays for the Egypt, this new Forehead out-of Horus in the Edfu is the most well-preserved and the singular we understand for already been done. Built from sandstone prevents the massive Ptolemaic temple are constructed more than the site away from a smaller before forehead, depending east to west, with the river. New later design confronts north to south and renders new wrecked remains of your own more mature temple pylon to be seen with the eastern section of the basic court. Off strengthening texts inside the later on Ptolemaic temple hence endures now, we know this particular is actually begun from the Ptolemy III Euergetes I inside 237 BC, however, was not completed up to 57 BC.
Little is known concerning earliest temple away from Horus during the Edfu, but there’s inscriptional evidence one to New Kingdom rulers Seti We, Rameses II and III did renovations indeed there
Up until hallitseva sivusto now, folks contacted the fresh forehead prior their substantial enclosure wall surface on the western front, carved that have rates of the Ptolemaic kings providing to different deities. There was now a freshly built mentor park, cafeteria and you may open-heavens art gallery leading straight to leading of temple. The original build i arrived at, within south-western place before high temple pylon, is a rectangular colonnaded strengthening peculiar to Graeco-Roman temples, known as an effective mammisi or beginning-domestic, made to enjoy new divine delivery regarding Horus. The newest Roman mammisi in the Dendera are modelled on this design. Reliefs show the new jesus Bes, delivery moments plus the newborn son from Horus and Hathor, Ihi (Harsomptus), nursed by Hathor regarding marshes.
Carvings on massive twin systems of your own 36m large entry pylon are nearly echo photo of each almost every other towards the antique scenes of your own king smiting their foes prior to Horus. We can together with certainly understand the mast grooves on the flags that will features fluttered on entry. Two statues of the Horus falcon stand till the main portal. During the entrance are a flat courtyard flanked because of the colonnades toward the brand new east and you may western as well as on the brand new south which illustrates save carvings of one’s ‘Meal of one’s Stunning Meeting’. It was an extended and you will important festival where cult sculpture of Hathor out-of Dendera was delivered to Edfu for the a beneficial barge with far involved ritual and you can event, to meet up with their own consort Horus for their annual reunion. Most other ceremonies of your festival is seen within the structure of the courtyard.
To come is the main forehead facade before and that really stands the well-known huge black colored stone statue off Horus since the good falcon, wear the latest twice top from Upper minimizing Egypt. Brand new facade has actually display wall space that have involved columns regarding typical brand of Later Several months and you can Ptolemaic temples.
