Temple of Horus, Edfu

Date1880s

MediumAlbumen print from collodion negative

Credit LineGift of Margaret A. Carver in memory of Charles H. Carver, Emory '39

Dimensions8 3/16 x 10 9/16 in. (20.8 x 26.8 cm)

Object number1984.011.046

Label Text"There is always some temple buried to its shoulders in the sand, partially visible like an old dug-up skeleton."

Gustave Flaubert, Letter to his mother, 1850

Like the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, the temple at Edfu owes its pristine condition to the fact that it was constructed by Egypt's Ptolemaic rulers, beginning in the third century BC. The two temples were also connected in antiquity by the fact that the goddess of Dendera paid a ceremonial visit each year to Horus at Edfu. Lucie Duff-Gordon observed that of all Egyptian temples "Edfu and Dendera are the most perfect." The temple was excavated in the 1860s. In this photograph the canonical parts of the Egyptian temple are easily recognized. Reading from right to left, one sees the pylon, the courtyard, the portico of the hypostyle hall, and beyond the inner sanctuaries.

Exhibition HistoryThe Fascination With The East: Early Photographs of Egypt (travelling show), Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology, November 18, 1986 - February 28, 1987; Louisiana Arts and Sciences Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, September 19 - December 31, 1987; Red Mountain Museum, Birmingham, Alabama, April 10 - May 8, 1988
Gods, Goddesses and Kings, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January - May 1994; March 7 - June 7, 1995
Souvenirs of the Nile: Nineteenth-Century Photographs of Egypt, Michael C. Carlos Museum, July 1 - September 24, 2000
Published ReferencesMonique Seefried and Mary Cozine Woodward, The Fascination with the East: Early Photographs of Egypt (Atlanta: Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeolgoy, 1987), 8.

ProvenanceEx coll. Maria Hersey (1843-1927), Portland, Maine. Thence by descent.

Status

Not on view

Collections