On Location - Edfu, Egypt

The Temple of Horus, also known as the Edfu Temple, is an Egyptian temple located on the west bank of the Nile in Edfu, Upper Egypt. It is an incredibly well-preserved monument to one of Ancient Egypt’s most important deities, Horus. Worshipped as the child of Isis and Osiris, Horus was depicted with the head – and often the body – of a falcon and was the ruler of the skies and the deity of the pharaohs. Built over the course of around 180 years, the Temple of Horus was the work of the Ptolemies, beginning in 237 BC under Ptolemy III and finished around 57 BC.

The temple was the largest one dedicated to Horus’s cult in all of Egypt and would have hosted many festivals and celebrations held in his honour. Its size gives an idea of the prosperity of the Ptolemaic era, and the richness of its inscriptions has contributed greatly to our knowledge of Egypt as a Hellenistic state. The temple continued as an important place of worship until 391 AD when Roman emperor Theodosius I issued an edict banning paganism throughout the Roman Empire. Christian converts attempted to destroy many of the temple’s reliefs while black scorch marks on the ceiling of the hypostyle hall suggest that they tried to burn it to the ground.

The inscriptions on its walls provide important information on language, myth and religion during the Hellenistic period in Egypt. In particular, the Temple's inscribed building texts "provide details [both] of its construction, and also preserve information about the mythical interpretation of this and all other temples as the Island of Creation." There are also "important scenes and inscriptions of the Sacred Drama which related the age-old conflict between Horus and Seth."

The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I's persecution of pagans and edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391. As elsewhere, many of the temple's carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that was then considered pagan.

Over the centuries, the temple became buried to a depth of 12 metres (39 ft) beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.

After wandering around the temple, I took the time to wander some of the street in Edfu. A lovely way to meet the locals and get an insight into their lives and culture.