The temples are very interesting and mostly we relate it to some known country such as China, Japan, among others. However, this is the exception, because the Edfu Temple comes from ancient Egyptian, so it is located on the west bank of the Nile in the city of Edfu.
I have always mentioned that the history is a marvel and that the tourism or culture of Egyptian is really interesting, so you can't miss this great place. Edfu Temple was built by Imhotep a polymath Egyptian scholar, sage and architect known in history. This temple was built between 237 BC and 57 BC during the Ptolemaic era, being also a Greco-Roman temple that was dedicated to the god Horus, becoming one of the largest in ancient Egypt and one of the most preserved. It has a length of 137 meters and a height of 36 meters.
It is important to note that the Ptolemies imitated the architectural constructions of the Pharaonic era and has several typical instances of its architecture with the pylon, the hypostyle halls, a chamber of offerings, a central hall and the sanctuary of the temple. Through the writings on the walls, it provides information about their metological references, their religions, their construction or how they lived in Ancient Egypt.
The temple was abandoned in the year 391 A.D., due to the prohibition of non-Christian worship. Having said the above, a proof of this can be found in the ceiling of the hypostyle hall of columns, because you can see the damage caused when this happened, as Christians burned any religious image or statue that was not Christian, thus destroying any worship of the time. This is how it was abandoned and under the houses that were built there later.
In 1860 the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette began excavations to unearth it and luckily the sand managed to maintain its perfect state of preservation as it still does today.
This place is still very popular today, because as I mentioned before, it tells many stories. For example, that of the divine feuds of the time or the victory of Horus and Isis over Seth having killed his brother Osiris (husband of Isis). It also shows a statue of the god Horus with the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.
The hypostyle hall of the feasts is the oldest part of this place, which is composed of 12 decorated columns in addition to several rooms for offerings, the chamber of consecrations and a library.
In the second hypostyle room there are again rows of columns on each side of the room supporting the intact ceiling of the temple with interesting reliefs on astronomy and representations of the sky.
Inside this majestic temple is also the famous laboratory that has some formulas of Egyptian essences and ointments, which were used by the French to produce the most famous perfumes today. Without leaving aside, you can also visualize the most sacred part of the temple, that is, the sanctuary of Horus, which was built with black granite and where you can see the table of offerings, and the ceremonial boat in which Horus was carried during the festivals.
I must admit, that this place is incredible and has a very interesting history, so if someday I travel to Egypt I can not miss this great temple!
I hope you liked this article!
Tell me, what did you think and what is your opinion about it?
