Day 10 - Edfu and Kom Ombo

Today we are still aboard our Nile cruise boat.

The boat docked last night in Edfu, about dinnertime. We stayed overnight on the ship and woke up this morning before 6am to eat breakfast and take our tour of the Edfu Temple. We left this early because of the heat as well as the fact that there are many other boats docked here and we wanted it to be a bit less crowded at the temple. We took a horse drawn carriage (a caleche) to the site of the temple.

I’m not sure of the operating hours but I think it’s 6am until 4pm. Most of the tourists arrive by boat and they are usually gone by that time of day. There are only about 50,000 people who actually live in the town of Edfu. Our whole visit took less than 2 hours.

The Edfu temple was built by the Ptolemies about 250 BC and took almost 180 years to build. This was because there was some unrest happening in their capital of Alexandria so people kept getting pulled off the building project and moved to the capital to help defend against the problems occurring there. The Greco-roman rulers continued the tradition of the Egyptians as far as temple building and followed the Amarna style of reliefs which shows the people more accurately. The figures had more rounded bellies and stronger legs. Everything was a bit more realistic to show what the kings actually looked like. It is called Amarna style because Akhenaten started this tradition when he moved to Amarna.




The temple is devoted to the god, Horus, who is the son of Isis and Osiris. You will see a video of one of the walls that depicts the battle between Horus and his uncle, Set, who killed his father, Osiris. Obviously, Horus is angry that Set has killed his father. Each set of figures shows Horus on a boat trying to capture Set who has taken on the figures of a hippopotamus and a turtle while trying to escape. Isis is on the boat with Horus helping him out. In the final scene, Horus has captured Set (as a hippo) and put chains around his feet. He does not kill Set. This shows that evil is always around us but that we must try to control it only.

Our guide also showed us a first lesson in reading hieroglyphs. There are many different ways to read them. It all depends on what directions the faces of the animals and people are facing. If they are facing right, you read from right to left. If they are facing left, you read left to right. Once you know the hieroglyphic alphabet, you can read the cartouches fairly easily. I have included one video that shows our guide reading a cartouche. I have also included one video for you all to figure out yourselves.


There is also a Nilometer at this temple. Every farmer was taxed each year based on the height of the river. The government reasoned that if the Nile was high, the crops would be good. If the Nile was lower than normal then the crops probably wouldn’t be as abundant. The Nilometer is set under the temple and looks like an isosceles triangle. The water fills up the narrow end of the triangle and comes forward based on the level.


We went back to the boat and are now sailing towards Kom Ombo.

We arrived at Kom Ombo Temple at about 3pm. Kom Ombo is a Greco-Roman temple that was started by Ptolemy VI Philometor at the beginning of his reign and added to by other Ptolemys. It is a two part temple that is symmetrically balanced with the left side being dedicated to Haroeris, Horus the Elder (not to be confused with Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris) and the right side being dedicated to the crocodile God, Sobek. One interesting fact was that this temple was mostly filled with water five months of the year when the Nile flooded. When it was discovered, it was filled with sand.


There is a separate structure that has 2 crocoldile mummies:


There are a few very interesting scenes depicted on the walls in this temple. The first one is the calendar. The round disk means “day” and the marks before the disk indicated the number of days. So, 2 marks plus the disk means the second day of the month. There were also symbols for each season plus the last day of the month.


Another scene in the back of the temple depicts the ancient Egyptian means of surgery. There is a surgery table plus a few examples of their instruments. The temple was used as a type of hospital where local people could come and get medical treatment. There is also a picture of Isis showing the best way for a woman to position herself for child birth.

There is also a Nilometer at this Temple. There is evidence that the people at this temple took baby crocodile from the river and raised them in the nilometer. There was also a tradition of using the nilometer as a sort of wishing well. People would write their requests, or wishes, on rocks and toss them into the water as an offering to the gods.


The last important scene we saw was the block of stone that actually contains both of the gods – Horus the elder and Sobek. Originally this slab was thought to have been at the very top, middle of the front entrance to the temple.


There is also good examples of how the Egyptians built concrete structures without cement. Each piece of concrete contains a slit that fit a wooden wedge inside it. Each piece of granite was stuck together with these wooden wedges.


The Kom Ombo temple is open from 6am until 8pm. There are lights at the temple which help people see after dark.

After dinner tonight, we had Nubians come aboard and give us a show of their music and dancing. We are now docked in Aswan and the Nubian village is on an island in the Nile River in Aswan.