The five of us got in our assigned buggy and our nice driver let Nicholas take the reigns. We were off to the Temple of Horus!
EDFU
Edfu lies on the west bank of the Nile and here you can visit the best preserved cult temple in Egypt: the temple of Horus. This temple dedicated to the god, Horus, who was the son of Isis and Osiris. Egyptians represented him as a falcon or as a man with a falcon’s head wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt on his head. The temple was begun in 237 BC by Ptolemy III, on the sight of a sanctuary during the reign of Tutmosis III, and was finished in 57 BC by Ptolemy X III, the father of Cleopatra. The Greeks called this temple Apollinopolis Magna, but that’s a whole other story!
Upon arrival,the visitor is at first struck by the 118 feet (36 m) high pylons with typical scenes of the pharaoh in battle with his enemies. The entrance is flanked by a monumental, black granite falcon representing Horus.
See the falcon statue to the left of the entrance? Looks small in the photo but as you can see from above, it was huge...
Through the grand entrance, you enter the hypostyle hall...
There were numerous groups of Egyptians, school children and tourists alike...
On the walls, there are numerous reliefs; in one of them the annual reunion between Horus and his wife, Hathor, is depicted. Hathor’s name means “house of Horus” and one of her titles was ‘the mistress of the sky’. She is always represented with two horns holding the moon on her head. Later, she was identified by the Greeks with the goddess of Love and Beauty, Aphrodite and Venus.
Beyond the great hypostyle hall there is another hypostyle hall followed by a succession of smaller, darker chambers which lead into a sanctuary. The walls are decorated with religious and mythological themes. The reliefs depict mysterious rites, magical formulae and ceremonies from which the ordinary people were excluded. Sadly, only the pharaohs and nobles would have been allowed past the hypostyle halls to see these beautiful works.
The buggies waited for us while we visited the temple but when it came to finding our assigned carriage it was nearly impossible! Each looked just like the others! Of course, the vendors and buggy drivers offered to help you find your carriage number...for a price! They all want money for everything so we got to practice saying "La shukran" ,"No thanks", a lot there. We decided to find our buggy ourselves but it took quite a while.
On the way back to the ship we had a race with the other buggies! Quite exciting, and a bit scary going through the town with traffic of buggies and cars. Not to mention, Nick was holding the reigns!
On board the ship, we had a big surprise waiting for us when we got to our rooms!!
The stewards on Beau Rivage had taken our clothes and clean towels and made these crazy 'people' to greet us when we entered our rooms! So clever and what a surprise!
While we ate another delicious lunch, the boat moved down the river to our next destination; Kom Ombo. At our assigned table in the restaurant, we were making friends with our table mates, a French family from Nice, Daniel and Martine Pellegrino and their two lovely daughters, Sandrine(25) and Ornella(15). Over lunch, they explained that there would be an Egyptian costume party that night. We all discussed what to wear and after lunch went off to the ship’s store, as well as to the vendors along the pier, to buy costumes for the event. Just wait until you see what we all ended up wearing!
Mimi took us to visit the Temple of Kom Ombo in the late afternoon so we could be there into the evening when it would be illuminated. It was beautiful but quite chilly once the sun went down
KOM OMBO
Kom Ombo, the "city of gold", is located 41 miles south of Edfu. The feature attraction here is the Temple of Kom Ombo. This temple is similar in layout to that of Edfu but not as well preserved. It consists of two mirror temples. The left temple is dedicated to Haroeris (a falcon headed god, a form of Horus)) and the right one to Sobek (a crocodile headed god). South of the double temple, there is the Hathor temple, dedicated to this Roman goddess. There you can visit a collection of mummified crocodiles. They were creepy and also pathetic.
Here is a relief of Sobek. Can you make out the crocodile face on the left?
Two of the most interesting things I saw at the temple were first, in one of the small chambers there were reliefs covering all the walls and ceiling. They got bigger and bigger as they went up toward the ceiling. Mimi explained that this was the room where all the medical formulas and representations of medical instruments were kept. It was fascinating!
The second interesting thing was a Nilometer located next to the temple. A Nilometer is like a huge well that is used to measure the height of the Nile River and therefore to predict harvests. The people were taxed more in years when the water lever was high (and harvests would be plentiful) and less in years when the level was low. The harvests varied significantly based on the amount of flooding each season.
True darkness arrived and we were all frozen. Time to go...
We raced back to the warmth of the bus which delivered us to the boat where everyone was busily primping for the evening's festivities. There were special drinks and hors d’oeurves along with entertainment in the bar before dinner. Then we enjoyed an amazing multi-course, Egyptian feast the chefs prepared and there was dancing to follow.
Here we are at our table with the Pellegrino family...
Sarah and Ornella...
Daniel, Sandrine and Nicholas...
For our whole family it was truly a memorable evening!
Don't go far....tomorrow we're off on a real boating adventure on the Nile!
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