To walk alone through its chambers is to be transported more than two thousand years into the past. Not even Abydos, Madinet Habu, or Dandara offer such an experience, and it is not uncommon that visitors cut short their tour of Edfu because they find its dark and silent interior so evocative of ancient rites that they become unnerved. Work on Edfu temple was begun in the Ptolemaic period, on 23 August 237 BC, when the first stones of the innermost rooms  were laid. Construction and decoration were completed 167 years later. The temple was dedicated to the god Horus of Behdet (Behdet was the ancient name of Edfu), a deity worshipped here since predynastic times.

 The temple is surrounded by the remains of a huge ancient city and necropolis in which archaeologists have found buildings of the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period. Adjacent to the temple itself, archaeologists havefound traces of its dynastic precursor, a temple built in the Rameside Period.The approach to the temple today requires that visitors enter the site at its rear, then walk around the structure to the first pylon. But that is about to change. A new entrance has been built adjacent to the mammisi about 100 meters south of the temple pylon,  and when it is opened, one’s first view of the temple will be its imposing façade.

FIRST PYLON

The temple’s massive First Pylon stands over 34 meters (110 feet) tall. It lacks a cornice, but includes the customary four niches that held flagstaffs and huge scenes of Ptolemy XIII in a standard pose smiting the enemies of Egypt before Horus.
Two huge statues of Horus as a falcon flank the pylon’s gateway. What you see on the two towers of the pylon is a foretaste of what lies inside: walls heavily decorated with relief that impresses more because of its massive scale than carefullycrafted figures.

FORECOURT

Beyond the pylon lies the Forecourt or Court of Offerings, surrounded on three sides by thirty-two columns, each with a different floral capital and decorated with scenes of the king before various temple deities. Behind the columns, reliefs on the front wall of the court show the king before various deities and (at the far left or east end) being presented to Horus of Edfu and Hathor of Dandara. Below, other scenes show statues of these deities sailing between those two sites. These scenes depict the annual Feast of the Beautiful Meeting, when Horus and Hathor visited each other’stemples and, after two weeks of ceremonies, were magically united in marriage.

Scenes on the right tower are similar to these scenes, but there the king wears the Lower Egyptian crown instead of the Upper Egyptian crown. At the far right, men and women dance and make music. Note that many of the royal cartouches here, and indeed throughout the temple, were deliberately left blank, perhaps in anticipation of a change of ruler. The screen wall at the north end of the court is especially beautiful in early morning sunlight. Its reliefs show Ptolemy VII and Ptolemy X offering to Horus and Hathor.

THE FIRST  HYPOSTYLE HALL

 
Through the door in its center one enters into the First or Outer Hypostyle Hall, its high ceiling supported by twelve free-standing and six attached columns, each with an elaborate capital. The paint is gone today and the hall may seem rather dim. But in antiquity it must have been bright. Scenes at the right (west) end of the front wall show the king with Horus driving pegs to lay out the temple foundations, and the story of building the temple continues along the left (west) side wall. At the end of that wall, the king offers the building to Horus. The rear (north) wall of the hall also deals with the building of thetemple. Two small chambers lie against the screen wall on either side of the hall’s main entrance. The chamber on the right (west) is called the Robing Room or the Vestry, where costumes worn by senior priests were kept. Its counterpart on the left (east) is the Library, where papyrus rolls dealing with temple rituals were stored. Two niches in the side walls may have held some of these documents.

THE SECOND HYPOSTYLE HALL

The Second Hypostyle Hall is the next chamber along the temple axis. It is smaller than the First Hypostyle Hall but its decoration is more dramatic because there is less ambient light, and the shafts of light that pour in through holes in the ceiling act as spotlights that slowly move across the floor and the walls. Twelve columns support the ceiling and the walls are decorated with scenes of the founding of the temple. Doorways in the right and left (east and west) side walls lead into small chambers and to a well beyond the temple ambulatory or to a stairway.

The stairway leading from the rear right (northeast) corner of the hall, ascends to the roof. It is now locked about a third of the way to the top, but its lower walls, decorated with processions of priests and gods celebrating a New Year’s Festival, are worth a look. There are two chambers on the left (west) side of the hall. The first was used as a storeroom for offerings used in temple rituals. It has a doorway in its rear wall that leads to the temple ambulatory. The second chamber (on the right), is sometimes called the Laboratory, where incense was mixed and stored. The texts on its walls describe how the incense was to be made. One such recipe can be seen at top left on the rear wall.

THE OUTER VESTIBULE OR OFFERING HALL

The Outer Vestibule or Offering Hall, beyond the Second Hypostyle Hall, is a small, rectangular room whose decoration shows the king offering to Horus. Doorways in the right and left (east and west) walls lead to stairs to the roof. They are now closed.

INNER VESTIBULE 

An Inner Vestibule, called the Hall of the Repose of the Gods, like most rooms in this part of the temple, was the work of Ptolemy IV Philopater. Here, the king is shown offering and praying before various deities.

THE SANCTUARY

The most sacred part of the temple, the Sanctuary, lies immediately beyond the vestibule. It was here that the divine bark of the god rested on a low platform that stood before a large granite naos that held a statue of Horus. The naos was ordered by Nectanebo I in Dynasty 30, and is one of the oldest parts of the temple still extant. Holes used to hold the double leaf wooden doors that closed the naos can still be seen in the opening. The sanctuary is separated from the rest of the temple by a small ambulatory along which are a series of ten small chapels. These can be accessed from the vestibule. The texts on the sanctuary walls include many of the hymns that would have been sung by priests each morning as they came to awaken the statue of Horus, as well as purify, clothe, and feed him.

CHAMBER OF OFFERINGS

A doorway in the right (east) wall of the vestibule leads into a Chamber of Offerings. Inside, up a flight of six steps, stands a small chapel in which the king and queen offer to Horus and Hathor and to their parents,Ptolemy III and Queen Berenice (left front or southwest corner). Above the doorway of the chapel, seven figures of Hathor beat tambourines.

THE CHAPEL OF THE SPREAD WINGS

 Moving counter clockwise around the sanctuary, the next chamber is The Chapel of the Spread Wings, its walls decorated with scenes of those who protect Osiris. One of them is Mehyt, a lion goddess, whose boat can be seen on the left (north) wall.

 THE CHAPEL OF THE THRONE OF RA

 Next is The Chapel of the Throne of Ra, whose scenes treat the coronation of the king. Note the baboons who greet the sun at dawn on the right (south) wall, and on several walls, the king before persea trees. The third chamber has another chamber opening off of it; the first is dedicated to Khonsu, the second to Hathor.

THE CHAMBER  OF THE VICTOR

 Beyond the center of the rear wall of the temple is the fourth chamber, The Chamber of the Victor (a reference to Horus), in which a copy of a wooden boat now sits as it would have done in antiquity.

THE TOMB  OF OSIRIS

Farther left (west), is another double chamber, The Tomb of Osiris, and farther inside, the Chamber of the West. Around the corner is another Chamber of Osiris, then The Chamber of the Throne of the Gods, the Chamber of the Linen, and finally, the Chapel of Min.

OUTER CORRIDOR

We can now return to the Outer Vestibule or to the First Hypostyle Hall and exit through the right (east) wall into the temple’s Outer Corridor or Ambulatory. The walls of this narrow passageway, which surrounds the temple proper, are decorated with scenes of the king smiting Egypt’s enemies and scenes of him netting birds and wild game, which some say are representatives of evil. Moving around the back of the temple to the ambulatory’s northwest corner, we begin a series of scenes showing the god Horus standing in boats and spearing a tiny hippopotamus or crocodile, the representatives of the evil Seth, whom Horus is set to defeat. Near the southern end of the western wall of the ambulatory, Seth is shown in chains, speared by Horus. Farther on, three men stab a hippopotamus; the god Imhotep reads from a papyrus; and the king feeds a goose that will be sacrificed. Many of the details in these scenes, which together tell the story of The Triumph of Horus, are well-executed, and one can note especially the rigging of the boats and the costumes of the gods. At the end of the ambulatory, just before it narrows, a figure of Seth as a donkey is drawn on the eastern (left) wall.

OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE

About one hundred meters in front of the Temple of Horus stands a smaller building of the same date called the mammisi, a Coptic word meaning a birth-house. Its reliefs tell the story of the wonderful birth of Harsomtus (“Horus the Uniter”), the son of Horus and Hathor. As in parts of the main temple, here too are scenes of the Feast of the Beautiful Meeting, the annual ceremony in which those two deities met and married. There are finely carved details in the scenes here, such as those in agricultural scenes on the north wall, and the figures of a horse and its groom on the east. Some of the scenes still have their original color intact. Surrounding the main buildings at Edfu are the remains of the ancient town, a deep mound with many meters of highly stratified mud brick and stone buildings that span millennia of occupation. Unfortunately, much of the townsite has been destroyed by modern digging.

From" The Illustrated Guide to Luxor" by kent R.Weeks ,published by the American University in Cairo Press. Copyright © 2005 White Star S.p.a