RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF KOM-OMBO, UPPER EGYPT. 
These ruins are finely situated on a promontory on the eastern side of .the river, in 
a bay formed by the head of the Nile to the westward. In descending the river the 
Temple thus seen on the high bank above it holds a striking position. There are 
remains of other Temples below, on the verge of the Nile, but the stream which 
sweeps round the bend has already carried off, even within our own time, some of 
these interesting monuments, and will eventually remove them all by undermining 
the banks. Of the great Temple, much is concealed by vast sand-drifts from the 
deserts; but enormous masses of its ruins rise above the arid and herbless surface 
which surrounds them, giving to the scene a character of dreary desolation in keeping 
with the decay of this once magnificent structure. 
The facade fronts the west, an exception to the general aspect of the Temples 
on the Nile, which almost invariably face the east; it is also one of the very few 
on the eastern bank of the river. The Temple is remarkable for a dual character, 
“a peculiarity,” says Wathen, “illustrated by an inscription. A column instead of 
an interspace occupied the centre of the portico, and two lateral entrances led to a 
double suite of inner doorways; the inscription explains that the Temple was dedicated 
to two divinities, the great god, Aroeris Apollo, and the tutelary deity of Ombos.” 
Its facade of five columns is eighty-three feet wide, and the whole depth of the 
building about one hundred and twenty feet. Over the door, on either side of the 
centre column, on the cornice of the enormous blocks which form the entablature, 
are the winged globe and serpents, and on the frieze a double line of large hieroglyphics. 
The vast size of the stones of this Temple has struck every traveller; “ some of the slabs,” 
says Wathen, “of which the flat ceilings were composed, are twenty-seven feet long,” 
nearly seven feet wide, and five feet thick. As these masses lie about in utter confusion, 
they suggest the queries, by what power were they transported hither—erected—and 
have been displaced? In their erection a singular order of inversion prevails: the 
largest blocks have been employed in the superstructure. Every exposed spot on 
column or cornice is covered with hieroglyphics, and the Temple once bore on its 
surface the records of its own history. The cartouche of Thothmes III. is found 
inscribed here, 1600 b.c. ; yet some of the learned in Egyptian antiquities would reduce its 
age to the Ptolemaic period, 1500 years later, misled probably by additions then made to 
the Temple. The figure of Savak, the deity of Ombos, who is represented with the 
head of a crocodile, marks that this bestial worship was once held here, and the 
animal is frequently found represented in the hieroglyphics of the Temple. Even 
as late as the time of Domitian, the inhabitants of Ombos, who worshipped the crocodile, 
fought a desperate battle in honour of their god with the people of Dendera, who 
worshipped the snake. Juvenal, who at that period was in Egypt, relates, in his 
fifteenth Satire, that the latter were merciless victors. 
