page_title: Edfu
section_title: Ancient Tell Edfu
hierarchical_section_title: Edfu / Ancient history / Ancient Tell Edfu
caption_attribution_description: English: Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. Edfu [selected images]. View 01: Egypt - Edfu., n.d. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10.08 Edfu, image 9884).
context_page_description: Edfu is an Egyptian city, located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty thousand people. Edfu is the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and an ancient settlement, Tell Edfu. About 5 km south of Edfu are remains of ancient pyramids.
context_section_description: The remains of the ancient settlement of Edfu  are situated about 50 m to the west of the Ptolemaic temple – to the left of the older temple pylon. This settlement  is known as Wetjeset-hor and the Greek name was Apollinopolis Magna (Ancient Greek: Apollinòpolis, Απολλινόπολις). According to Notitia Dignitatum, part of Legio II Traiana Fortis was camped in Apollo superior, which was the Roman name for the town.
  Although unassuming and unglamorous to the visiting tourists, Tell Edfu is a monument that contains evidence of more Egyptian history and is of more archaeological interest than the Ptolemaic temple. Although major parts of the settlement show severe signs of erosion, cut away or have been exposed during sebakh-digging, enough is preserved to gain information from as far back as the Predynastic Period. The remains of the settlement (tell) provides an insight into the development of Edfu as a provincial town from the end of the Old Kingdom until the Byzantine period. The settlement at Edfu was the capital of the Second Upper Egypt nome, and played an important role within the region. The oldest part of the town which can be dated to the late Old Kingdom lies on the eastern part of the tell, not far from the Ptolemaic temple.
  There is evidence that the town flourished during the First Intermediate Period when it expanded extensively to the west. It is one of few settlements in southern Egypt that thrived when it seems that the north, especially around the delta, was in economic decline.
  Today, the ancient mound of Tell Edfu is preserved in some areas up to 20 m high and contains complete archaeological sequences of occupation dating to the Old Kingdom until the Graeco-Roman period, more than 3000 years of history, therefore providing ideal conditions to study the development of a provincial town.  A central part of the site was explored by Henri Henne from the Institute for Egyptology in Lille in 1921 and 1922. His team identified the remains of a small sanctuary from the Late or Ptolemaic period, possibly the Osiris chapel built by Psamtek I. Henne was followed by Octave Guéraud in 1928 then by Maurice Alliot in 1931 who each explored and excavated different aspects of the settlement remains.  The top layers of the settlement containing the Byzantine, Roman and Ptolemaic remains and the  Old and Middle Kingdom cemetery at the southern western corner were recorded by a Franco-Polish expedition in 1937–39. The expedition was organized in cooperation between the University of Warsaw and the Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO) in Cairo, and was  directed by B. Bruyère, J. Manteuffel and Kazimierz Michałowski. Three elaborate reports on the archaeology of Tell Edfu were published. 
  Unfortunately, since mid-1939 no new detailed discoveries or thorough research has been completed at the tell except for 
  recent work done by Barry Kemp, from the University of Cambridge. Since 2001, the Tell Edfu project has been directed by Nadine Moeller (Oriental Institute, University of Chicago). The current work focuses on the eastern part of the site. So far the administrative centre of the ancient town has been discovered with remains of a columned hall dating to the late Middle Kingdom as well as a large granary courtyard that functioned as a grain reserve for this provincial capital. Latter dates to the Second Intermediate Period (17th Dynasty). At least seven large round silos have been excavated here with a diameter between 5.5 and 6.5 meters which makes them the largest ones so far discovered within an ancient Egyptian urban centre.
  No larger remains dating earlier than the 5th Dynasty have been found at Edfu. The ancient cemetery comprised mastabas of the Old Kingdom as well as later tombs. Before the beginning of the New Kingdom, the necropolis was transferred to Hager Edfu, to the west and then in the Late period to the south at Nag’ el-Hassaya. The entire area was called Behedet. The god Horus was herein worshipped as Horus Behedet.
  One of these mastabas belonged to Isi, a local administrator, who, it was quoted 
caption: Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. Edfu [selected images]. View 01: Egypt - Edfu., n.d. Brooklyn Museum Archives
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