One the first Day of 2003, we awoke blurry eyed and disembarked for a tour of the temple Edfu. The huge stunning majesty of the huge Pylons at the temple entry cleared all of the slumber from our brains.
The Ptolemies began construction of the Temple around 257BC to honor the falcon shaped god, Horus. The acheints celebrated the Feast of the Beautiful Meeting, the annual reunion between Horus and his wife Hathor. Edfu was excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1860. At that time, the temple had become a village filled with stables and storehouses, the roof of the Sanctuary area covered in mud-brick houses, and the inner chambers filled with rubbish almost to the ceiling. How upsetting this desecration must be to the long gone Ptolemies!
Cruise ships raft-up at landing points along the Nile. The Captains exploit amazing skill to maneuver the ships in and out of the shallow, swift waters of the Nile. During the winter, the Nile is at it's lowest level while the tourists are at the highest level.
From here, we continued North, to the largest temple complex in the world, Luxor.
