PORTICO OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFOU, UPPER EGYPT. 
This view is taken across the large and magnificent peristyle court of the Temple, 
which forms an oblong square between the lofty pylons and the pronaos. Two of 
those columns are seen which occupy both sides of the court and the end towards the 
entrance within the propylon; eleven of these columns range on each side of the 
court, and five on each side of the entrance; these support a gallery which leads on 
either side to the pronaos. But the magnificent object in this view is the portico of 
the Temple, which presents a facade of six columns, behind each of these are two 
other rows, forming a pronaos of eighteen columns, nowhere surpassed for exquisite 
beauty. Those on either side of the centre have their capitals composed from the 
lotus, those of the middle columns of the date-palm, with its clustered fruit below 
its elegant pinnate leaf, and those at each end a composite of the fan-like doum, or 
Theban palm-tree; thus only three varieties of these, uniformly placed, are seen in 
this beautiful facade. There are walls intercolumniated, but their bases are buried 
in the sand. On either side, attached to the centre columns, are jambs, without a 
lintel having coved cornices that rise to within a diameter of the fillets of the capitals. 
These jambs have a bold torus round their borders, and are covered with hieroglyphics, 
thus forming a grand gateway to the pronaos; but the sand, which has inundated the 
Temple, has risen to the cornice of the jambs, and within the pronaos almost to 
the capitals of the columns, and concealed all the walls, except one, between them. 
Over the entrance, on the frieze or broad moulding of the entablature of the 
pronaos, is the globe with the serpent and wings, and on each side rows of scarabei, 
long-tailed baboons standing erect, worshippers, and men bearing offerings. This 
moulding is continued down the side of the facade. In the bold coved cornice above 
this frieze, and above the other winged globe, is one still larger, with hieroglyphics 
carved on either side, composed of the sacred hawk, cartouches, and globes with drooped 
instead of extended wings; these alternate to the extremity of the cornice. The friezes 
within have rows of figures of Isis sitting. 
The sand, which has filled the pronaos, has rendered the cella and chambers of 
the Temple inaccessible; if this could be removed, some interesting discoveries might 
be made, and the bases of the columns, long protected by the sand and rubbish, 
would exhibit a portico scarcely surpassed in Egypt. 
In striking contrast with the magnificence of the ruins are the wretched mud huts 
of the inhabitants of Edfou, as they are seen perched up above the cornice: such a 
foundation for such a superstructure shows “to what base uses things may come at 
last.” Their miserable dwellings are stuck on every accessible place in and about the 
Temple; and over the sanctuary is a populous village, where the bleating of kids, 
the crowing of cocks, and the cries of children, are utterly out of character with 
their strange locality. 
Roberts’s Journal. Dr. Richardson’s Travels. Irby and Mangles’ Travels. 
