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| Kom Ombo Temple |
Kom Ombo Temple is the give temple is magnificently located on elevated rock, but the
Nile has more lately changed its course and
many of the temple’s outer edifices have been clean away or
seriously denuded. These
include the so-called
mammisi (birth house), which was begun during the reign of Ptolemy VIII
Evergetes II (170–163 BC and again 143–116 BC), and parts of the mudbrick
envelopment wall. The construction of the modern quay where tour boats moor has
cut the risk of further erosion of the river bank. Past wrong has been
conglomerate by the recent earthquake.
Despite these problems, the temple of Kom Ombo
still continues several distinctive features. Front among these is its base
plan, which reveals that the temple is really divided into two halves down its
central axis. Such a “double temple” is rare in Egyptian architecture. The
north half of the temple is gave to the god Harwer (“Horus the Elder”) and his
associate Tasentnefert (“the beautiful sister”), who is placed with the
goddess Tefnut, and
their offspring, the
child god, Panebtawy
(“the lord of
the two lands”). Panebtawy shares
some of the features of Sobek, to whom the southern half of the temple is
dedicated. Sobek, the crocodile god, is likewise a member of a triad of deities
comprising his consort,
Hathor, and their
offspring, Khonsu. A
careful examination of the temple dedications and their location reveals
that primacy is agreed to Harwer. This is particularly plain in the arrangement
of the hieroglyphs on the outer hypostyle
hall’s double architrave,
beneath which are
twin entrances leading
to each parallel half of the
temple. Passing through the outer, central and inner vestibules, one eventually
comes to the sanctuary, divided in half by a hollow central wall, perhaps to
give approach to the now broken roof from which extended observations could be
made. Some scholars maintain, however, that this passage was intended to hide a
priest who would be the voice of an oracle in the name of either deity. Within
each sanctuary is a black granite
stone, incorrectly called
an altar. These
were originally the
stands on which rested the sacred
barks of Harwer and Sobek, which were used in processions. A series of
underground crypts, of versatile function but perhaps used to store worthy
ritual objects, and a suite of symmetrically arranged rooms are discovered at
the rear of the temple.
The temple itself is included on three faces by a corridor formed
by extending the outer walls of
the first hypostyle
hall. This is
again another unusual
hold of the temple’s
architectural design, and
one which is
without parallel in
other temples of Ptolemaic and
Roman date.
Other structures include a small chapel dedicated exclusively to
the god Sobek in the northwest of the
temple precinct, bounded
by the enclosure
wall. To the
west of this structure is a curious pit, cut into the
living rock and drawn with blocks of stone. This have has sometimes been named
as a water tank, but some scholars, mentioning the analogy of the precinct of
the Apis Bull at Memphis,
have indicated that it was a devoted precinct where a keep crocodile,
thematerialization of the god Sobek, was housed. In the southeast is the
lateral gateway of the temple’s enclosure wall. This gateway was built by
Ptolemy XII (80–57 BC and once again 55 BC) and is now the great entry to the
temple. In the vicinity of this gateway and almost edging the enclosure wall is
a small chapel to the goddess Hathor. The chapel has been regenerate into a
museum which houses a choice of mummified crocodiles located in the vicinity of
the temple.
Some of the temple reliefs are extraordinarily crafted and reveal
a sensitivity to spatial concerns that is indebted to advances already abused
in the reliefs of the temple of Seti I (19th Dynasty) at Abydos. One significant example is a scene on
the west wall of the inside hypostyle hall where Ptolemy VIII Evergetes II is
showed with his wife, Cleopatra II, and his daughter, Cleopatra III. The
queens, each bearing the characteristically tightly right sheaths
and holding floral
scepters, form the
left hand side
of a harmonious composition. The contours
of their floral
crowns are harmoniously
balanced by the arrangement of their cartouches
introductory their heads. Next comes Ptolemy VIII Evergetes II, who takes in
his close hand a scepter shaped like the hieroglyph w3s and continues his far
hand toward Harwer in a gesture of adoration. Ptolemy here wears a festive,
light apparel which reveals the contours of his legs beneath. Delicate as these
refers are, they should not unknown the fact that the imbrications of the
properties held by Harwer in the far right of the composition thinks the
arrangement of the properties held by Seti I and the deities he adores at
Abydos. The three notched palm fronds held by the near hand of Harwer device in
space and go beneath his spread far arm, which offers the scimitar to Ptolemy
VIII Evergetes II.
This contemporaries of
space is a
masterful induction of pharaonic artistic tenets.