Edfu city is positioned between Luxor and you will Aswan about southern area part of Egypt. The town, which is on the west lender of one’s Nile, is world-famous for the temple, which had been mainly based within the Ptolemaic several months. The fresh new Temple of Edfu , seriously interested in the fresh new god Horus, is the second premier temple inside the Egypt. Pursuing the Roman months, this new temple was slowly buried by the wilderness mud, and you may silt on Nile. This is why, the latest temple is actually missing, and was just rediscovered in the 19 th century. Other than its dimensions and state out-of conservation, this new Forehead out of Edfu is additionally recognized for its large number out of inscriptions, with each other known as the Edfu Messages, and therefore frequently safeguards all offered facial skin.
Forehead of Edfu On Old, Center and you will The fresh Empire Symptoms
The metropolis of Edfu is known as well as by a number of almost every other names. New old Egyptians, by way of example, know the metropolis as the Behdet, just like the Greeks and Romans entitled they Apollonopolis. That it latter name is actually a reference to the city’s head goodness, Horus, which the Greeks identified making use of their individual jesus Apollo. In the event Edfu are most famous for the Ptolemaic forehead , the newest city’s history expands much next back in its history.
For instance, archaeological excavations in the western and you may northern components of the town has actually uncovered topic in the before symptoms of the town’s occupation. They truly are mastaba tombs regarding Dated Empire , and you can burials dating to the Center Empire . It has also been discovered you to into the The latest Empire quarries are built with the Install Silsilah (south away from Edfu town). Sandstone try acquired from the quarries and directed everywhere Egypt having framework performs.
Inside The fresh Empire, a temple to Horus is actually based within Edfu. This temple was smaller than the modern construction, and you may offered is present. The only real function one remains of The new Kingdom temple is actually the pylon (a beneficial Greek title to your monumental portal away from a keen Egyptian forehead), which is discover with the eastern of one’s the newest forehead, and you may faces the new obtaining phase into the Nile. For the reason that that brand new Ptolemies created a beneficial the fresh temple on the website of your old you to definitely.
The pharaoh exactly who began the construction of Temple regarding Edfu try Ptolemy III Euergetes, the third ruler of Ptolemaic Kingdom . Throughout the their leadership, and that live regarding 246 to 222/1 BC, Ptolemy been able to reunite Egypt and Cyrenaica, and you will triumphed along side Seleucids when you look at the 3rd Syrian Combat. Egypt’s native temples benefitted significantly out of Ptolemy III’s seksi LehГ§e kadД±nlar laws. Other than unveiling the building the latest Temple from Edfu, Ptolemy III also produced donations some other temples, and you can recovered the new divine statues plundered throughout the temples by the Persians. By-the-way, his epithet, ‘Euergetes’, function ‘Benefactor’.
As the design of one’s Temple out of Edfu began inside 237 BC, it wasn’t complete by the time out of Ptolemy III’s dying. Nonetheless, the building of your own forehead proceeded. It actually was eventually completed in 57 BC, inside the leadership out-of Ptolemy XII Auletes. The building of temple grabbed such a long time so you can done due to the of a lot nationalistic uprisings from inside the Upper Egypt during that time hence disrupted the building techniques.
Decrypting the fresh Temple out of Edfu as well as the Edfu Texts
The fresh Ptolemies were not merely facing interior trouble, however, exterior of those too. By the time regarding Ptolemy XII, the latest luck of Ptolemaic Kingdom had waned, plus it are don’t the newest great and you may prosperous condition it was previously. In fact, the Ptolemies had been into the brink off dropping their kingdom, because Egypt was absorbed from the Rome within the 30 BC, adopting the past Ptolemaic leader, Cleopatra VII Philopator , try deposed because of the Octavian (tomorrow Emperor Augustus).