Kom Ombo Temple is located in the city of Kom Ombo in Aswan Governorate, southern Egypt. The temple was established during the reign of Ptolemy VI to worship the gods Sobek and Horus. Recently, restoration and renovation operations have taken place in the temple area.
Its creation.
This temple was established during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor, but its decoration was not completed until the Roman era, the time of Emperor Tiberius. We also see in this temple the same characteristics that we find in other Ptolemaic Egyptian temples in terms of design, architecture and decoration. However, this temple has a special feature that resulted from its Local worship in the place, where people worshiped two local gods, Sobek and the falcon-headed Horus, and despite the difference between these two gods in origin and character, they lived side by side for long centuries without mixing or acknowledging each other, and therefore it is not found in This temple is not only two sanctuaries adjacent to the sanctities, but there are also doors in the axis of each of these sanctuaries next to each other, in the outer wall and in the walls of the two pillared halls and beyond them. Accordingly, the temple is divided into two parts, each of which is designated for the worship of one of these two gods.
The walls of this temple were decorated with deeply Egyptian decoration, distinguished by its precision, good harmony, and the beauty of its balance between the characters of its scenes and the surrounding hieroglyphic inscriptions that complement these scenes.
Columns.
A column which is part of the temple that was completed during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. We see the Roman Emperor here in the Pharaonic costume.
As for the heads of the columns in the temple, they are different, and this was common in the Ptolemaic era, and all of them were known before this era, especially those known as the heads of Hathor, the heads of palm trees, the heads of lotuses, and the heads of papyrus, which are truly Egyptian heads, and their Egyptian style has never been doubted. The most common column heads in the Ptolemaic era were the composite column heads, in which some see without justification or reasonable cause a trace of the Corinthian column heads. As for us, we believe that it is truly Egyptian, and the fruit of the artistic renaissance that flourished during the Sawi era - that is, in the seventh and sixth centuries BC - and aimed to revive ancient traditions, which produced many verses of Egyptian art. The explanation for this is that we know that the papyrus and lotus columns go back in their origin to the primitive pillars, on which the ceiling was supported and whose heads were decorated with flowers. However, since the artist of the Sawi era was naturally superior to the artist of the Old Kingdom in terms of progress and delicacy of feeling, Al-Qahqari did not return to those primitive pillars. Rather, he took the core of his column from a flourishing papyrus column with an open top, and decorated it, as his ancestors had done before, with a bouquet of flowers. However, he chose flowers of several types instead of one type, such as lotus or papyrus, as Old Kingdom artists did.
The many complex types of these new heads could not have been developed within a short period. Rather, they must have been the result of a long natural development. However, it is difficult or even impossible to trace the roles of this development now in view of the demolition of the temples of the Sawi period (660-525 BC). birth). The appearance of all types of these heads during the Thirtieth Dynasty in the Temple of Nectanebo II, that is, in the middle of the fourth century BC, leads us to believe that the history of these heads must go back to an era prior to the Thirtieth Dynasty. If we examine all the various considerations, we find that the Sawi era was the most appropriate time for this because of the renaissance of art and the peace and prosperity that prevailed in it. If these heads were in the process of being formed during the seventh and sixth centuries BC, that is, long before the appearance of the Corinthian column, and if we remember the origin of the Egyptian columns decorated with flowers, and if we know that the elements that make up the new heads are purely Egyptian, then it becomes clear to us that the claim is false. Who sees in the new heads a trace of the Greek Corinthian column. If there is a relationship between the two, the opposite is more likely to be true, because the Egyptians used to decorate the heads of their columns with flowers before the Greek era with columns, and the lateral rings (volutes) in the Corinthian heads bear a strong resemblance to the ends hanging from the leaves of the iris flower, which was Symbol of Upper Egypt, used in decoration in Middle Kingdom Egypt
Next to the temple.
Painting of a medical equipment cabinet in the Kom Ombo temple.
Next to this temple is a crocodile museum containing mummified crocodiles from the time of the Pharaohs. They were found in tombs and temples. Inscriptions were also found on the Kom Ombo Temple bearing the image of a cup used to draw blood from the body. This is what is known today as cupping, and the Pharaohs used it for treatment. They used to draw blood from the body using metal cups. These cups were found in the crypts and monuments of the ancient Egyptians. They were usually made from sheep horns with a hole drilled at their pointed end... through which the blood was drawn out of the body. Then they used glass cups from which they emptied them. Air by burning a piece of cotton or wool inside the cup.