The temple of Kom Ombo

Introduction

Kom Ombo is a small town on the east bank of the Nile between Aswan and Edfu. It was the cult centre of the crocodile god Sobek, a god of fertility and military strength who was also linked with water and with warding off evil. People lived at Kom Ombo from the predynastic period, but the town flourished in the Ptolemaic era.

The temple dates from the Ptolemaic period, though it seems to stand on the ruins of an earlier New Kingdom temple. Ptolemy VI (Philometor) began it, Ptolemy XII (Auletes) decorated it, and the outermost parts were not built until Roman times.

The temple’s layout is unusual: it was designed for two triads. The southern half was dedicated to Sobek, Hathor and Khonsu, and the northern half to Haroeris (Horus the Elder), Tasenetnofret (another form of Hathor) and Panebtawy (lord of the two lands).

The architectural plan of the temple

The temple runs east-west, following the “local north” set by the direction of the Nile in this area. Today you enter through the remains of the Ptolemaic gateway at the south-west corner, and a flight of steps leads up to the temple gate.

The gate opens into the Roman forecourt, lined with 16 columns, with an altar base and a small basin for libations in the centre. In ancient times Nile floods eroded parts of the forecourt; modern water control has reduced the risk of further damage. Reliefs on some of the surviving columns are well preserved and keep their original colours.

A series of halls leads to the inner parts of the temple. The forecourt and the holy of holies were divided equally between Sobek and Haroeris to reflect the temple’s double ownership.

The outer hypostyle hall has an imposing façade with screen walls between the columns and side doors used by the priests. It has 10 columns, and its wall reliefs are divided between the two gods, with Sobek on the east and Haroeris on the west.

The inner hypostyle hall repeats this design on a smaller scale. It has two separate processional paths leading to three narrow transverse halls in front of the inner sanctuary.

These three halls, one after another, lead to the holiest part of the temple: twin sanctuaries for the two gods who owned it. Only the pedestals that once held the sacred barques survive. Smaller cult chapels surround the sanctuaries, but they are now in poor condition.

The inner temple is honeycombed with crypts and hidden passages, and an internal gallery runs around it. The outer corridor surrounding this area has unusual scenes of surgical instruments, among the earliest depictions of medical and surgical tools in the ancient world. They include scalpels, curettes, forceps, specula, scissors and medicine bottles, and the reliefs also give prescriptions for several diseases.

The chapel of the goddess Hathor

A small separate chapel to Hathor stands on the east side of the temple. On the west side are the remains of a very deep well and a small pond where crocodiles are thought to have been raised. Some mummified crocodiles and their clay coffins are kept in the chapel.

The Nilometer

Nilometers became a regular feature of Ptolemaic temples. The one at Kom Ombo, on the north-west side of the temple, is a circular well used to measure the level of the Nile during the flood, and it dates from the Roman period.

Crocodile museum

The first museum devoted entirely to crocodiles opened just north of the temple. The crocodile was sacred as the embodiment of the god Sobek. The museum displays forty mummified crocodiles, crocodile coffins, wooden sarcophagi, crocodile fetuses and eggs, together with stelae and statues of Sobek with a human body and a crocodile’s head.