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Edfu | The Temple of Horus



The Temple of Edfu, one of the best-preserved temples today that was dedicated to the god Horus and is located in the city of Edfu, on the west bank of the Nile River and is a great tourist spot to visit on your trip to Egypt.


Edfu, which can also be written as Edfu and is called Behdet in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, it is a small Egyptian town, located on the west bank of the Nile River between the ancient Thebes, Luxor nowadays and Aswan, with a population of about 60,000 inhabitants. Edfu is the site of the famous Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and has an ancient settlement that goes back as early as 3000 B.C, It was known back in the Hellenistic period as Koine Greek or the Biblical Greek, or in Latin as Apollonopolis Magna as the chief deity of the region, God Horus, was known in Latin as Apollo.

One of the most beautiful temples in the whole of Egypt which you can recognize how the Horus god beat the Set god and  the good won over the evil, you can see the falcon in the open court of the temple its amazing statue, as that the temple in the west bank in the Nile river

God Horus:

Horus of Behdet was the local god of Edfu according to the ancient Egyptian religion, and his wife was Hathor of Dendera, where a very famous temple for her known as Dendera Temple. Their annual ritual was one of the most important ceremonies of the Ptolemaic period. Later, this god was identified with Horus, the son of Osiris who was one of the ancient Egyptian gods associated with the underworld.

The winged sun disk associated with Horus of Edfu is the symbol of united Egypt. This motif was a traditional scene depicted on the temple doors and ceilings in order to commemorate Horus' victory over his uncle, the evil Seth who killed his father when Isis collected his body organs that were scattered everywhere in Egypt in very dramatic mythology known as the myth of Isis and Osiris.

Like at Esna, the temple of Edfu is one of the most important sites included within all Egypt Nile River Cruises and also among most of Egypt Travel Packages, Egypt Day Tours, and Aswan day tours. It was constructed during the Greco-Roman era, but still retains its Egyptian style of architecture. As a result, a visit to Edfu allows you to see what all of the other ruined temples around Egypt might have been looked like.

The town is known for the great Ptolemaic-style temple, built between 237 and 57 B.C, during the reign of the famous Queen Cleopatra VII. Of all the temple remains in Egypt, the Temple of Horus at Edfu is the most extensively preserved. It was built out of sandstone blocks, the enormous Ptolemaic temple was constructed over the site of a smaller new kingdom temple facing the Nile. The later structure faces north to south and leaves the ruined remains of the older temple's pylon to be observed on the east side of the 1st court.

Being located at the center of the Edfu town, by the 19th century, the village had been enlarged into the temple with some houses actually standing on the roof of the sand-buried temple. Now the buildings had been cleared away but the excavations are still taking place as surrounding buildings were part of the temple complex itself, only several meters below the modern ground level.

The temple is flawless and marvelous, with the pylon that was built by Cleopatra’s great father during the 1st century before Christ, which leads into a peristyle court and then a hypostyle hall that leads to the sanctuary of Horus, the greatest and most important part of the temple. The ruins of which can be seen at many other sites around Luxor and along the Nile Valley are almost the same style. The Temple of Horus at Edfu is by far the most complete example of this unique architectural style.

The Pyramid ruins

The ruins of one of the seven little local step pyramids built along the Nile Valley has been found about 5 km to the south of the current city of Edfu near the village of Naga El-Goneima. The pyramid is made out of the local red-colored sandstone and rises at 5.5 m high. The pyramid has been constructed most probably by King Huni of the third Dynasty. The main aim of those pyramids is incredibly strange and mysterious. Further excavations and a detailed survey are carried out by the Oriental Institute at Chicago University since 2010.

Planning any tours to Egypt? or from our varieties of tours from Cairo, you can easily see the magnificent Temple of Edfu with Cairo Top Tours.

Egypt tours are numerous and different, Egypt Day tours make it easier for you to visit the amazing temple of Edfu as well as many other places and wonderful sites, you can even combine Edfu and Kom Ombo tours with the assistance of our specialized tour operators:

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