Vivant Denon's Re-discovery of Ancient Egypt. Part 3

The canal job also brought Denon to Esna and Edfu. Denon had often passed through Edfu without being given the opportunity to explore its temple in detail. Sweltering heat and the hounding of the Khamsin weren’t ideal conditions for exploration but at least he was given time to review the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus fairly thoroughly.

Denon had already been to the Temple of Horus twice but on each occasion he had been escorted away prematurely; the first time he had barely time to ride around the temple. Still, he had seen enough to admire the simplicity of its lines and its majestic position high above the Nile valley.

As for its age, he had ascribed it to one of Egypt’s more recent period. The temple does indeed belong to the last phases of ancient Egypt’s history. In fact, apart from the inner sanctuary built by Nectanebo II, the temple is a Ptolemaic structure, with construction having started in 237 BC under Ptolemy III Euergetes and having continued for more than 150 years. The Ptolemies could have chosen to erase the inner sanctuary. By letting it remain they affirmed their continuity with Egypt’s past, in this case with the 30 th Dynasty, the last native Egyptian dynasty.

The 30th Dynasty had risen to power at a time in Egypt’s history when the country was controlled by the Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great’s ascent to the throne in 559 BC was a defining event in Persia’s aggrandisement and the eventual Persian invasion of Egypt in 525 BC. By reducing Egypt to dependence, the Persians were able to maintain very large military forces. To a great extent then, it was Egyptian resources that fed the legendary wars of Xerxes and Darius against Greece in 490 and 480 BC.

In 404 BC the Egyptian chieftain Amyrtaios rose in rebellion against the Persians and returned Egypt to native rule. He also set the stage for two decades of political turmoil. In 380 BC Nectanebo I took power via a military coup. Building programmes saw a revival, with new constructions in Karnak, Philae and Edfu among others. Nectanebo’s 30 th Dynasty only lasted for some 40 years though. Between 343 and 338 BC the Persians, under Artaxerxes III, launched three major campaigns, which again resulted in Egypt’s reduction to dependence. The Persian rule was highly unpopular though and once Alexander the Great had defeated Darius in Asia, the Macedonian conquest of Egypt was easy.

Half buried in rubbish in 1799 the temple presented itself very differently than it does today, but instead of being put off, Denon was intrigued by the contrast between the monumental character of a temple complex and the ramshackle houses of its modern inhabitants. The two towers of the pylon, 110 feet tall, were big enough to protrude from the sand and the reliefs of Ptolemy XIII (r. 51-47 BC) smiting his enemies before Horus were visible too, at least the upper part of the king’s body.

Only a small fraction of the religious imagery beyond the First Pylon was visible to Denon. Debris reached high up the columns and the inhabitants, whose houses were built on the roof of the temple, utilised the remaining space to store their goods. Most of the scenes are standard though, showing the king making his offerings. But the walls are also decorated with detailed scenes of the Feast of the Beautiful Meeting, an annual get-together of Horus, whose residence was here at Edfu, and his wife Hathor, who resided at Dendera. The union of Horus and Hathor as depicted on the walls –their barks are seen sailing up and down the Nile – is to be taken at face value as their statues would literally be transported back and forth between the two temples, much like in the Opet Festival described above. Also as mentioned above, Horus was very important to the Egyptian belief system. The king was seen as the embodiment of Horus whose victory over Seth in primeval times had brought peace and tranquillity to Egypt.

Unfortunately debris barred Denon from entering the core of the temple and it was only when he found a breach among the mud-brick ‘modern’ buildings on the roof that he was able to enter one of the chambers closer to the Sanctuary. He knew that the chamber came before the Sanctuary and he estimated it to be the second from the First Hypostyle Hall, probably the Outer Vestibule or one of the smaller chambers connected to the Second Hypostyle Hall.

Whichever chamber it was, his investigations stopped here and he was never to see the granite shrine in the Sanctuary. We can only pity Denon, for the temple is one of Egypt’s best preserved and renders a perfect idea of what a complete Egyptian temple looks like. If indeed it were the Outer Vestibule he had entered, also known as the Offering Hall, the scenes he saw – he doesn’t describe them in enough detail to be absolutely sure – would have been of the king making offerings, as it was here that the daily offerings to the gods were made.