March 2, 2022

March 2, 2022

Sometime early this morning our ship continued its journey up the river Nile. Midmorning we arrived (along with dozens of other ships) in the town of Edfu. Once ashore we hired a horse cart to drive us the couple miles to the Temple of Edfu. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC. His general Ptolemy governed Egypt after his death. This began a dynasty of Greek Pharaoh Ptolemys often married to Queen Cleopatras. Caesar married Cleopatra VII. Surprisingly these Greeks adopted Egyptian traditions and religion. They built this temple here in Edfu. Since it is so much newer (only 2200 years old!), it is in very good condition and wasn’t added onto like older ones.

The entire temple complex is surrounded by a mud brick wall. The entrance pylon has two halves symbolizing Upper and Lower Egypt with the sun rising in the center gap. Just inside is a hypostyle courtyard. Past that is the sanctuary surrounded by lots of rooms.

The temple was dedicated to Horus, the falcon god. During the renewal festival his wife Hathor would be transported from her temple at Dendera for the sacred marriage ceremony.

In the Muslim and Ottoman eras, this religion was forgotten, and the desert reclaimed the temples half burying them in sand. Ordinary people occupied the temples leaving a layer of fire soot on the ceiling. They also hacked out the god’s faces as pagan idolatry giving us the term ‘defaced’. The figures near the floor, below the sand, escaped this vandalism.

Throughout the hieroglyphic inscriptions, I can identify lots of the Cartouches with the names, Ptolemy and Cleopatra. These Greek names were part of the key to decipherment. Linguists eventually realized Hieroglyphics mostly represented sounds (vs picture writing). Cleopatra and Ptolemy have several letters in common (especially P, T, O, L) and this proved crucial.

In the back of the temple is a staircase that leads down to the river level. This calibrated staircase was a Nilometer that measured the flood level of the river. This information would be relayed down river to the kings so they could anticipate the coming inundation season.

Back on the ship, we toured the Captain's Bridge before sitting down to lunch. One of the entrees was camel meat. It didn't taste like chicken, but rather a tough cut of beef. We spent the afternoon again on the upper deck watching the Nile riverbank float past.

Late in the day we stopped at Kom Ombo. We got off the ship and walked to the temple. This is another relatively modern temple from the Ptolemaic Period. It is unusual in that it is a double temple with two entrances and two sanctuaries, dedicated to two different gods. And oddly one is Sobek the Crocodile-headed god. Crocodiles surely must have inspired fear in the ancient Egyptians who depended on visiting the Nile River often. I am sure there were more Crocodiles the farther south one went. Crocodiles (and Hippos) were eliminated once the High Dam at Aswan was built. This temple even had an artificial pond on the grounds where the priests raised sacred crocodiles.

Next door we made a quick visit to the Crocodile Museum. Besides having the nicest statues of Sobek, it has a large collection of mummified sacred crocodiles. We then walked back to the ship for dinner.