Between Luxor and Aswan is the city of Edfu, on the territory of which one of the largest temples was built, its size is slightly inferior to Karnak.

The temple began to be built during the reign of Ptolemy, around 237 BC. Construction was completed in 57 BC. This temple is one of the best preserved temples of ancient Egypt.

However, it was discovered in a very deplorable state in 1860. It was found by Auguste Mariette, director of the Louvre and collector of the collection, for the Egyptian Museum located in Cairo. The temple has been restored.

  • The god Horus was worshiped in this temple. Horus was the son of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. It has classical ancient Egyptian architecture. At the entrance to the temple is a massive entrance pylon. Which is the second largest in Egypt.
  • Its open courtyard is surrounded by numerous columns, in the middle of which there is a giant statue of Horus the Falcon, made of black granite.
  • The main hypostyle hall is decorated with scenes depicting the processes of sacrifice. The hall has 18 columns.
  • The second hypostyle hall is smaller, but more elegant. It has 12 columns.

Next is the sanctuary, which, in ancient times, could only enter the enlightened — who are the great priests and the pharaoh himself. The sanctuary contains a naos, which was carved from solid rock during the reign of the XXX dynasty.

Numerous reliefs and wall inscriptions in the temple tell about the victory of the god Horus. He took revenge on the god Seth for the death of his father, while defeating all of Seth’s allies, who are depicted as various hippos and crocodiles.

  • Numerous inscriptions, which are painted on the walls in the Temple of Horus, serve as a bottomless fount of knowledge for visitors. They point to the many books containing the mythology, astronomy, geography, and construction of ancient Egypt.
  • The inscriptions make it possible to explain the symbolic meanings of various proportions and the diversity of sizes of the architectural structures of the temple. And they provide links to the plots of mythology, also a popular book written by the pyramid builder Imhotep.

Here you can find recipes for the preparation of oils and incense used in rituals.

For the decoration of the hall of Egyptian arts in the Pushkin Museum, the prototype of the temple of Edfu was used. In 1909, in the spring, the future director of the museum, I.V. Tsvetaev made a trip to Egypt, the purpose of which was to familiarize himself with the ancient architecture of temples. He believed that the hall of the temple in Edfu is similar in size to the hall of the museum located in Moscow.