FRIDAY, AUGUST 6 — EDFU and KOM OMBO

• Dawn breakfast
• Early visit to Edfu
• Lunch onboard
• Sail to Kom Ombo, arriving 5pm-ish
• Visit Kom Ombo Temple (slide show)
• Overnight in Kom Ombo

We’ll visit the temple of Horus at Edfu (slide show). It’s one of the best preserved monuments in Egypt and a highly significant part of an annual pilgrimage and festival celebrating the sacred marriage of the gods Hathor and Horus. Scenes of the New Year Festival and distinctive reliefs in its chapels are the temple’s drawing cards. This site is from the Greco-Roman era in Egypt, when the Ptolemies ruled, right before the country was absorbed into the Roman Empire. (Intrepid Insight Cruises’ Theresa Mazich, M.D., bottom-left of the image above, capturing the awe in the temple of Horus.)

The Temple of Kom Ombo (slide show) is memorable as a symmetrical “double temple” housing the worship of two gods, Horus the Elder (Haoeris) and Sobek, the crocodile god. Kom Ombo has a striking relief of the Pharaoh in a reed boat. The wall relief that raises the most discussion is one that appears to depict surgical instruments. Image, top of next column, taken by Insight Cruises’ Neil Bauman, is a classic example of the beauty, elegance, detail, and storytelling on display here in Kom Ombo.

KNEE/HIP/MOBILITY ALERT: Regrettably there are no accommodations for people with mobility issues at the sites we visit today. Some of the sites we visit are reached via a long steep flight of stone steps up a hillside. You need to think of the status of your joints, your sense of balance, and your mobility skills as you contemplate today’s adventure.