Esna Temple
Esna is on the west bank of the Nile 55km south of Luxor.
The temple, dating to the Ptolemaic and Roman Period and one of the last temples built in Egypt, stands today in its excavation pit, 9m below the modern ground level. It was dedicated to the god Khnum and several other deities, including Neith, Heka, Satet and Menheyet
The oldest part of the structure seen today is the west (back) wall which would have been the façade of the original temple, depicting reliefs of Ptolemy VI Philometer and Ptolemy VIII Neos Philopator. The earliest king mentioned here is Ptolemy V, who is being offered a libation by his son Ptolemy VII. The part of the temple we see today is around a quarter of the size of the original building.
The roof of the hypostyle hall is still intact, supported by 24 columns each with varied floral capitals. They are decorated with texts describing the religious festivals of the town and several Roman emperors before the gods. One of the columns shows the Emperor Trajan dancing before the goddess Menheyet.
The north wall of the hypostyle shows a traditional scene of the king netting wildfowl (representing evil spirits).
The ceiling of the hypostyle shows Egyptian astronomical figures on the northern half and Roman signs of the zodiac on the southern half.
once the whole temple was painted with colors , you still can see some traces of these colors .
