Kom Ombo Travel Guide

About The Town Of Kom Ombo 

Kom Ombo is an industrial town 45km north of Aswan and it was strategically placed between Edfu and Aswan as a garrison town on an important trading route. 

The fertile, irrigated sugar-cane fields around Kom Ombo, support not only the original community of fellaheen (peasant farmers) but also a large population of Nubians displaced from their own lands by the creation of Lake Nasser.

It’s a pleasant little place, easily accessible en route between Aswan and Luxor. A huge cattle market is held on the outskirts of town, near the railway line, on Thursday.

The Temple

The main attraction these days, however, is the unique riverside temple to Horus the Elder (Haroeris) and Sobek, about 4km from the town’s center, which stands gloriously on a promontory overlooking the Nile.

In ancient times Kom Ombo was known as Pa-Sebek (Land of Sobek), after the crocodile god of the region. It became important during the Ptolemaic period when its name was changed to Ombos and it became the capital of the first Upper Egyptian nome during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor.

Kom Ombo was an important military base and a trading center between Egypt and Nubia. Gold was traded here, but more importantly, it was a market for African elephants brought from Ethiopia, which the Ptolemies needed to fight the Indian elephants of their long-term rivals the Seleucids, who ruled the largest chunk of Alexander’s former empire to the east of Egypt.

The Ptolemaic temple and ancient town site are a few kilometers from the modern town on a promontory on the east bank of the Nile.