Temple of Horus in Edfu
The extraordinary temple was built here for an extraordinary god in ancient Egypt, which exists in Egyptian anthropology.
Before visiting this temple, it is important to mention the main legend in ancient Egyptian civilization. This legend is the main argument for existing this temple in his place now in Edu.
This legend is named “created the world, “ and in brief, this legend has assumptions about creating the cosmos and the whole world. The first god was “ Atum, “by the way, his means to complete, this god was without form nor body, created his form by pronouncing his name, so he existed alone in this world, and because he was alone, he couldn’t get married to another one, so he masturbated, and the whole world was musterbation of this god, and then appeared the land as island appearing from water, and later on ware the gods of air and humidity, and was a realistic form for the world, then we’re the first kids in this world, which were ( Osiris, isis, Seth, Nephthys ) Osiris get married with isis and became the god of the earth through his ancestor god geb indeed, while Seth gets married was Nephthys …
So Seth was so jealous of isis and his brother, who was luckier than him, and started the hostility against Osiris. Seth wanted to vanish his brother getting the earth and his wife, so he tried to attract him with some maneuvers, first, he proposed sarcophagus and asked Osiris to lie inside to check his measurements when Osiris lied inside he pushed so quickly this sarcophagus to the Nile, so isis escaped searching for her husband, till she found him in Lebanon, so she prayed to god, hoping that soul of Osiris return to him, and after religious rituals, Osiris became a life again, so his brother knew about that, and was so angry, he relentless went back to him to kill him again, but this time he cut his body into 14 pieces, divided them to all parts of Egypt, to kill even hope for life to his wife isis.
Isis did not lose hope, she searched for the pieces of her husband to collect all of them again, she found all pieces except his penis, some theories approve that deliberately Seth threw his penis to the Nile, so he could guarantee killing fertility of Osiris, even if other organs had been found and formed his body, so isis formed her husband, again and again, he reunited with his soul being alive, and without penis isis became pregnant!
Before the birth of Horus, Osiris died forever and was prized and crowned as the god of death in the afterlife world.
So isis together with Hathor raised the child Horus under her eyes and cared till he became an adult, so he had to get revenge on his enemy and uncle Seth.
In Edfu was the battle of Seth and Horus, Horus killed Seth, and thereby he became the main god of all Egypt, that is why the temple of Horus exists in Edfu.
The architecture of the temple
Temple of Horus in Edfu is considered of the most important temples in Egypt, because the key difference between it and other temple is that, it is the only temple which is highly preserved than other ones, and it is the only one which contains all architectural elements of the temple till now.
The temple is somehow demolished in scenes of its walls, because of various tribes of people who settled in this temple, through a long history of forgetness the value of this temple and the ignorance of its value from their side, thinking it is just stoned for paganism cult was in this place.
The temple differentiate from other temples which were built in ancient Egypt in some points
- There is no sphinx alee in this temple
- There is a Mamissi or house of birth.
- There is a new mix between walls and columns attached like this wall before the hall of columns.
- The capitals of columns in this temple are in the form of various flowers and ornaments, which were in the form of lotus or papyrus in ancient Egypt.
House of birth
It is located before the temple on the right, and this house of birth was innovated by the end of ancient civilization when foreigners started to rule Egypt.
In ancient Egyptian civilization, each king must be legal having the royal blood to ascend the throne of Egypt, and soon after his birth he had the name of the birth son of god Ra, but because the members of the Ptolemaic family were foreigners, they had to make the house of birth in each temple to legitimize their rule and holding power in this country.
First pylon
The first pylon in this temple is one of the first pylons which are well preserved in all Egypt . it has 32-meter height and 80 meters long, consists of two towers, which represents the two mountains of Egypt, eastern and western, and in the middle of them is horizontal, from where the sun rises daily, so the philosophy of building this the gate of this temple on this shape, was to reveal the connectivity between son and each temple.
On both sides of this pylon, represents the king beating his enemies in front of god Horus, Horus here represented as a man with a falcon head, and behind him his wife goddess Hathor, the goddess of maturity.
On the pylon there are 4 niches, where were housed the sticks that hold the flags of the temple, which were in 4 colors: white symbolizes upper Egypt, red symbolizes lower Egypt, green symbolizes Nile valley, blue symbolizes river Nile.
To the middle of the pylon, we can notice the winged sun-disk, which refers to the mutual relationship between god Ra of the son and god Horus.
Hypostyle hall
It’s the biggest hall as usual in each temple, it contains 32 columns, building cloister on 3 sides of the hall, on the walls of this hall behind the columns, is a great interesting text about documentation the festival of the annual visit between Horus and his wife Hathor, which happened in ancient time, Hathor was in Dendera and her husband was here in Edfu, so each year was their festival in Dendera, so people sailed in river Nile from different provinces and villages to attend this great festival, indeed there were two holy boats from the god Horus and his wife goddess Hathor, those boats had the best and elite sailors in all Egypt, who are responsible for their holy boats, and when they arrived in Edfu they stated the festival when the moon was full, and the festival had lasted 14 days, till the moon vanish, so was the end of the festival.
Hall of columns
In this hall, only priests were allowed to be heard, and this hall is more closed than the hypostyle hall, by wall connect columns on the side of the hypostyle hall, to make kind of privacy in this hall of columns,
In this hall of columns, there are 18 columns and the whole hall are carved with a ceiling of stone, on the east of the hall there is the door for the priests to enter the hall for the religious rituals, which happened in the temple in ancient Egypt, on the southern side of the hall, there are 2 kiosks, one on the right, was used as a library to keep their rolls of papyrus, with religious texts, to chant the religious hymns in the temple, while the other kiosk was used to keep there the essence for the festival, which were very important in ancient Egypt, the ancient Egyptians believed that essence helps them to improve their sense of breath, so they can recognize the nature of the cosmos, and their main source for essence was the lotus flower.
The festival hall
It is just an extension of the first hall of columns, by the way, there are holes on the entrance of this hall, which refers to the gate of wood which existed on the entrance of this hall, not only this hall, but each hall in this temple, but the most characterized scene in this hall is the ceiling, which is so dark and burned, the most hypothetical opinion about the color of the ceiling, is the settlement of homeless people in a different area and cooking inside this temple, as a result of that, the color of the ceiling was changed to dark.
The sanctuary
Or holy of holies, it was the most sacred place in the temple, no temple without sanctuary, it is the core of the temple and its origin.
That is why, the sanctuary was the first part in the construction and the darkest part according to lighting and the smallest place according to the surface, since there is the main secret of the temple, where only 2 persons could exist: “ king and high priest “ no one more had permission to enter to this holy place.
this sanctuary was discovered by Auguste Mariette, there is a granite niche that was used to house the golden statue for the falcon, and table of offerings, and the holy bark for god Horus.