Edfu is a small-sized city located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty thousand people. Edfu is the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and an ancient settlement, the town is known for the major Ptolemaic temple, built between 237 BCE and 57 BCE, into the reign of Cleopatra VII. Of all the temple remains in Egypt, the Temple of Horus at Edfu is the most completely preserved. Built from sandstone blocks, the huge Ptolemaic temple was constructed over the site of a smaller New Kingdom temple, oriented east to west, facing towards the river. The later structure faces north to south and leaves the ruined remains of the older temple pylon to be seen on the east side of the first court.
The temple was started by Ptolemy III, and then all this dynasty kings shared the temple, Horus temple is the second largest ancient temple in Egypt after Karnak temple.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated 5 different festivals in Edfu temple, the most important among them was celebrating the divine birth of god Horus, and his holy wedding with the goddess Hathor the cow goddess.
Its design is a typical Egyptian temple like Karnak, or Luxor temple begins with an open courtyard and a pylon.
The scenes is focusing on the holy wedding of Horus and Hathor, 31 priests can be seen carrying the holy boat of the god Horus leaving the temple in their way to the Nile to start the journey to the north to meet with goddess Hathor in Dandarah.
A birth chapel is erected in the most outside part of the temple west south of the open courtyard to commemorate the holy birth of Horus with lots of representations showing the boy king in a Horus from suckling from his mother goddess Isis.
A small boat can be seen in the sanctuary, made by the French Egyptologist Marriette Pacha to recreate the holy boat of god Horus.
One of the most visited chambers in this temple is the shrine of Nut, Horus’s grandma is shown on the ceiling of this chamber stretched to cover the four corners of the ceiling colored light blue in one half and dark blue in the other half with yellow stars.
