Edfu

About

While modern Edfu is a friendly provincial center known for its sugar and pottery, thousands of years ago it was a major religious center. It was here that the largest Temple of Horus was built by Cleopatra, and earlier pharaohs had even erected pyramids nearby. Thanks to the temple’s hilltop position, it was untouched by the Nile river’s devastating floods, making it the best-preserved temple in Egypt. Amazingly, even the temple’s roof has survived, adding a sense of mystery as you explore the dim corridors. Among the temples many carvings, it is the back of the inner hypostyle hall that’s the most interesting. Here, in what was once the temple laboratory, the recipes for perfumes and incenses were inscribed on the walls.