Edfu to Aswan · Ptolemaic
Ancient name: Nubt (Greek Ombos)
A double temple: one half for the crocodile god Sobek, one for Horus the Elder.
Kom Ombo is laid out twice side by side: two entrances, two sets of halls and two sanctuaries on parallel axes under one roof. The southern half belongs to Sobek, the crocodile god, and the northern half to Haroeris, Horus the Elder. Building began under Ptolemy VI in the 2nd century BC and went on for more than a century.
Sacred crocodiles were kept here, and crocodiles mummified in their honor were buried nearby; some are shown in a small museum at the site.
The front of the temple has been eaten by the river and by reuse of its stone, but the inner halls keep their reliefs and much color. A relief on the back wall shows a set of instruments that is often said to be surgical tools; what they were for is debated.
There is also a calendar of festivals carved on the walls, and a well with steps (a nilometer) for measuring the flood.
2 short, well-known texts from Kom Ombo, each with its transliteration (the Egyptian sounds in Latin letters) and a translation. Tap Sign by sign to see what each sign is and how it is read. Royal names are drawn in their cartouches.
Where: In the southern half of the temple, beside his figure as a man with a crocodile's head.
Spelled s, b, k, with a crocodile as the determinative. Sobek was a god of the Nile's power and of fertility, worshipped wherever crocodiles lived, from the Faiyum to Kom Ombo.
Reading: The standard spelling; the Wikipedia article "Sobek".
Where: In the northern half of the temple, beside the falcon-headed god.
ḥr-wr means "Horus the great"; the Greeks wrote it Haroeris. He was a form of Horus as a sky god, distinct from Horus the child of Isis and Osiris.
Reading: The standard reading; the Wikipedia article "Kom Ombo Temple".
Dates follow Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000); before 664 BC they are approximate. Readings are the standard ones in the sources named under each inscription; translations are Teddy Rook Book's own. The hieroglyphs are drawn in the site's font, TRB Hieroglyphs, so their shapes are simplified; where an inscription's arrangement or signs can't be shown faithfully, the card says so.