 Statue
of Horus at Edfu.
The granite statue of the falcon god Horus of Edfu stands in the court
of Edfu Temple at the entrance to the pronaos. The well-preserved Ptolemaic
temple of Horus was established during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes
I (246-222 B.C.) on the site of earlier temple constructions and worked
on later by Ptolemy X Alexander I (107-88 B.C.) and Ptolemy XII Auletes
(Neos Dionysos, 80-69/8 B.C.). Edfu (in hieroglyphs Db, in Coptic ETBO,
from which the modern name derives) stood on the southern border of Egypt
at the beginning of recorded Egyptian history. Its original situation
as a frontier settlement is reflected in the cultic name of the city,
Bhd.t, meaning "place of the throne." The chief deity of the
city was Horus Bhd.ty, "Horus of Edfu," commonly represented
as a falcon, or as a human figure with the head of a falcon. This local
Horus was believed to have come to Edfu from Nubia in the south. In later
times the ancient Greeks equated Horus with their god Apollo, and called
the city Apollinopolis megalé, "Great City-of-Apollo."
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