Worthless and Weak

It appears that I have an on-again off-again guided tour strategy. Today, I took a trip down to Edfu and Kom Ombo, home of two Ptolomean Egyptian Temples, which were about a 1000 years younger than any other temple I've seen so far. Built by the Greeks who ruled over Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered Persia, both temples had very defined heiroglyphs. In addition, the temple of Horus at Edfu was almost completely entact architecturally, all the roofing was still complete. Unfortunately, we arrived there at the exact same time as the cruise boats got there; and because the temple was completely enclosed, it became very crowded. However, it had an absolutely Gigantic first pylon, which was something like 47 meters or 150 feet tall.

The next temple was the temple of Haroeris and Sobek at Kom Ombo. This is supposedly the only temple in Egypt dedicated to two different Gods, so it had two of everything, two main entrances, two entrances from the Open Court, and most importantly two Alters. This temple also has the four depictions of Cleopatra, which are some of the few known depictions of her while she was alive.

My guide was pretty good, it was certainly good to have a guide inside the temples to explain many of the heiroglyphs out. ALthough he did make a few of the mistakes common to guides (he said that Hatshetshut was the first female Pharo, she wasn't the very first), but overall he seemed pretty knowledgeable and very friendly, so it was pretty good overall. The car ride was quite long though, almost three hours back.

Anyway, tomorrow I go to Aswan, which I'm really looking forward to.

Labels: Egypt, vacation