Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 - Cruising, Edfu, Temple of Horus, Kom Ombo

When we woke up this morning, we were docked in Edfu. At Edfu is the magnificent Temple of Horus. This temple was buried under silt and sand for over two thousand years. It is the largest and best preserved Ptolemaic temple in Egypt. Construction started in 237 BC and continued on until about 51 BC. Now a little bit about Horus. Horus was the falcon god and is always represented with a falcon head. His mother was the revered Isis. His father was Osiris and his paternal uncle was Seth. Seth killed his brother Osiris and chopped up his body into 17 parts and scattered the body parts around the country side. Isis found all the parts of her husband with one exception – naturally the male organ – and put Osiris back together again. (Sounds like Humpty Dumpty doesn’t it?) Horus vowed to get revenge against Seth. He eventually had a fierce battle with Seth and guess where the battle took place. Yup. Edfu. The evil Seth is always portrayed as a hippopotamus. There are pictures on the walls at Edfu of Horus (the falcon) smiting the evil Seth (hippo).

Egypt 2009 - Day 7

We were back on the boat by 9:30 AM and sailed south to Kom Ombo. This was a pleasant time to sit up on the sundeck and enjoy cruising down the Nile.

At 3:30 PM, we left the boat and walked the short distance to Kom Ombo which overlooks the Nile. This temple was dedicated to two gods. One half is dedicated to our old friend Horus the falcon god and the other half is dedicated to Sobek the crocodile god. Rumor has it that a crocodile used to have free run of the temple and was worshiped as the god. When it passed on to crocodile heaven, it was mummified and a new crocodile took its place. There was a museum on the site that had some of the crocodile mummies. Unfortunately it was closed and we didn’t have time to go in anyway. It would have been cool to see a crocodile mummy.

We returned to the boat and sailed on to Aswan.

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