Egypt – Day 11: Temple of Kom Ombo

After the Temple of Edfu, we visited Kom Ombo Temple. Quick history lesson on the name:

🌄 Kom means small mountain
🥇 Ombo means gold.
So it literally means Mountain of Gold.

This is only temple in Egypt that was dedicated to 2 gods, who were brothers. Horus the Elder (not Horus, the son of Isis) and Sobig, the crocodile God.

The mythology behind the temple is… interesting. I will try to break it down quickly.
Sobig wanted to get rid of his brother from the village. But everyone loved Horus the Elder and decided to follow him out of the village. However, Sobig needed people to run the town, farm, etc. He went to the cemetery, planted bones, and grew dead people. 🤷‍♀️ But these people weren’t very smart, you know… because they were dead people, and so they buried gold instead of wheat crops. So what grew was a huge mountain of gold or Kom Ombo.

Then Might, the god of Justice, made them a deal and built the temple for both of them, divided in two. So both sides of the temple are identical.

People would come to this temple from all over for healing and there are hieroglyphics of medical instruments on the walls. They look quite similar to the ones we use today.

There is also Nile-o-meter next to the temple, which measured how high the Nile would flood every year. It’s basically a well with stairs so one could walk down into it to see the water level.

As we were there in the evening, we were able to see a gorgeous view of the sunset over the Nile when we left the temple.

Admission Cost:

As with many Egyptian tourist sites, the admission fee for a foreign tourist is higher than for a native Egyptian. For tourists it is E240 (~$8 USD) and for students it is E120 (~$4 USD).

The temple is open for visitors daily from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM.

More information about Kom Ombo can be found here.