Ancient Edfu Temple is the second (after Kom Ombo) stop on the Luxor-Aswan Nile cruise, if you sail from Aswan to Luxor. It is a perfectly preserved Egyptian temple dedicated to Horus, a falcon-headed god.
Horus was the Egyptian god of the sun and sky in the form of a falcon. His parents were Isis and Osiris, the most revered gods of the ancient Egypt. The god of chaos and disorder Seth killed Osiris, and Horus was born to avenge the death of his father.
Horus killed Seth on the site of today Edfu Temple. Initially, small temples dedicated to Horus were built here, but under the Ptolemies, in the period from 237 to 57 B.C., a huge temple complex was constructed here, the second largest temple after the Karnak Temple in Luxor. At the same time at the temple there remained the naos (sanctuary) of much older temple.
Edfu Temple was built only a kilometer from the Nile. And a few centuries after the construction it was almost completely drifted with sand, except the entrance gate. The diggings showed that it was in a very good condition.
The temple is 137 meters long and 79 meters wide. The height of pylons reaches 39 meters. A courtyard with 32 columns is beyond the huge entrance pylon. From the courtyard you will get in a hypostyle hall with 18 columns and then in a procession hall with 12 columns, and from there you will get into sanctum sanctorum (sanctuary). The boat of Horus is in the center of the sanctuary.
The inscriptions on the walls of the Edfu Temple represent one of the largest collections of hieroglyphic texts of the Greek period in Egypt. A Horus sculpture of black granite is before the entrance into the temple. Black granite is extremely difficult to process even with modern technologies, and the sculpture was made more than two thousand years ago. In the inner yard there is another, even more complex sculpture of Horus. The sculpture dates back to even earlier period, to the time of Pharaoh Nektanebo.
