The great temple is of a warm-
brown color, a very rich and particularly beautiful brown, that
soothes and almost comforts the eyes that have been for many days
boldly assaulted by the sun.
Upon the terrace platform above the river
you face a low and ruined wall, on which there are some lively
reliefs, beyond which is a large, open court containing a quantity of
stunted, once big columns standing on big bases. Immediately before
you the temple towers up, very gigantic, very majestic, with a stone
pavement, walls on which still remain some traces of paintings, and
really grand columns, enormous in size and in good formation. There
are fine architraves, and some bits of roofing, but the greater part
is open to the air. Through a doorway is a second hall containing
columns much less noble, and beyond this one walks in ruin, among
crumbled or partly destroyed chambers, broken statues, become mere
slabs of granite and fallen blocks of stone. At the end is a wall,
with a pavement bordering it, and a row of chambers that look like
monkish cells, closed by small doors. At Kom Ombos there are two
sanctuaries, one dedicated to Sebek, the other to Heru-ur, or
Haroeris, a form of Horus in Egyptian called "the Elder," which was
worshipped with Sebek here by the admirers of crocodiles. Each of them
contains a pedestal of granite upon which once rested a sacred bark
bearing an image of the deity.
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