The town of Edfu, towards western lender of your Nile 56km southern area regarding Esna and you can 105km north off Aswan, is today an essential heart having glucose manufacturing and pottery-to make. This site of Edfu Tell try known as Wetjeset-hor (classical identity Apollinopolis Magna), where the fresh new goodness Horus are worshipped and you may where the competition between Horus and his awesome traditional opponent Seth in old mythology taken place. While it was well-covered by the wilderness mud and you will individual settlement dirt, Edfu forehead is actually went along to by many people very early travelers. Brand new sand has aided in preserving the building which had been receive to get nearly entirely intact if it was cleared and you will excavated of the Auguste Mariette on the 1860s.
The present day area comes their name on the old Egyptian Djeba which had been based on a great mound into eastern lender
Of all temple stays in Egypt, this new Forehead out of Horus within Edfu is the most well-maintained additionally the just one we know to possess become finished. Built from sandstone stops the large Ptolemaic forehead is created more than this site out-of an inferior prior to forehead, based east so you can west, towards lake. The fresh new afterwards framework face north so you can southern area and you may departs the brand new destroyed remains of the elderly temple pylon to be seen to your east area of the first courtroom. From strengthening messages into the after Ptolemaic forehead and therefore survives now, we know this was started of the Ptolemy III Euergetes We inside the 237 BC, however, was not accomplished until 57 BC.
Absolutely nothing is known in regards to the very first forehead out-of Horus from the Edfu, but there’s inscriptional research that The Empire rulers Seti I, Rameses II and you will III did building work truth be told there
Up until now, anyone reached the new temple previous its massive housing wall with the western front side, carved which have figures of one’s Ptolemaic leaders giving to different deities. You will find now a freshly constructed coach park, cafeteria and you can unlock-heavens art gallery leading to the front of your own forehead. The original framework we visited, within south-west place till the great forehead pylon, was a rectangular colonnaded building peculiar so sexy Amritsar women you can Graeco-Roman temples, known as a good mammisi otherwise birth-house, built to commemorate brand new divine beginning from Horus. New Roman mammisi within Dendera is modelled with this build. Reliefs inform you the newest god Bes, birth moments while the infant young buck out-of Horus and you can Hathor, Ihi (Harsomptus), nursed by Hathor from the marshes.
Carvings for the big twin towers of 36m higher access pylon are nearly mirror photographs of each other towards traditional views of one’s king smiting their opposition ahead of Horus. We can and additionally certainly see the mast grooves with the flags which may enjoys fluttered during the entry. A couple of statues of Horus falcon sit before fundamental portal. Inside the entrances was a flat courtyard flanked from the colonnades to the the brand new east and western as well as on new southern area hence portrays save carvings of your own ‘Feast of Stunning Meeting’. It was an extended and you may important event where the cult statue out of Hathor regarding Dendera try delivered to Edfu to the a beneficial barge having far specialized routine and you can occasion, to fulfill her consort Horus for their yearly reunion. Almost every other ceremonies of the event is seen inside the wall space of your courtyard.
To come is the main forehead facade before and this stands the newest popular colossal black granite statue from Horus because the good falcon, using brand new double crown regarding Higher minimizing Egypt. New facade possess monitor wall space having engaged articles regarding the usual sort of Later Several months and Ptolemaic temples.