Editing Kom Ombo (section)

==History==
{{main|Temple of Kom Ombo}}
{{Hiero|nbt<ref name = Budge1005>{{cite book |last1=Wallis Budge |first1=E. A. |title=An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list and geological list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, coptic and semitic alphabets, etc. |volume=2 |date=1920 |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft/page/1005 1005] |url=https://archive.org/details/egyptianhierogly02budguoft}}</ref><ref name = Gauthier84>{{cite book |last1=Gauthier |first1=Henri |title=Dictionnaire des Noms Géographiques Contenus dans les Textes Hiéroglyphiques |volume=3 |date=1926 |page=[https://archive.org/details/Gauthier1926/page/n43/mode/2up 83] |url=https://archive.org/details/Gauthier1926/page/n43/mode/2up}}</ref>|<hiero>nb-b-t:niwt</hiero>|align=left|era=mk}}

In antiquity the city was in the [[Thebaid]], the capital of the [[nome (Egypt)|Nomos Ombites]], on the east bank of the [[Nile]]; latitude {{nobr|24° 6'}} north. Ombos was a garrison town under every dynasty of Egypt as well as the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]] and [[Egypt (Roman province)|Roman Egypt]], and was celebrated for the magnificence of its temples and its hereditary feud with the people of [[Dendera]].
[[Image:Kom ombo6.jpg|thumb|left|[[Sobek]] at the [[Temple of Kom Ombo]].]]
Ombos was the first city below [[Aswan]] at which any remarkable remains of antiquity occur. The Nile, indeed, at this portion of its course, was ill-suited to a dense population in antiquity. It runs between steep and narrow banks of sandstone, and deposits but little of its fertilizing slime upon the dreary and barren shores. There are two temples at Ombos, constructed of the stone obtained from the neighboring quarries of Hagar Silsilah.

The more magnificent of the two stands upon the top of a sandy hill, and appears to have been a species of Pantheon, since, according to extant inscriptions, it was dedicated to [[Horus#Heru-ur (Horus the Elder)|Haroeris]] and the other deities of the Ombite nome by the soldiers quartered there. The smaller temple to the northwest was sacred to the goddess [[Isis]]. Both are of an imposing architecture, and still retain the brilliant colors with which their builders adorned them. However, they are from the Ptolemaic Kingdom, with the exception of a doorway of sandstone, built into a wall of brick. This was part of a temple built by [[Thutmose III]] in honor of the crocodile-headed god [[Sobek]]. The monarch is represented on tress, the doorjambs, holding the measuring reed and chisel, the emblems of construction, and in the act of dedicating the temple.

The Ptolemaic portions of the larger temple present an exception to an almost universal rule in Egyptian architecture. It has no propylon or dromos in front of it, and the portico has an uneven number of columns, in all fifteen, arranged in a triple row. Of these columns, thirteen are still erect. As there are two principal entrances, the temple would seem to be two united in one, strengthening the supposition that it was the Pantheon of the Ombite nome. On a cornice above the doorway of one of the adyta, there is a Greek inscription, recording the erection, or perhaps the restoration of the sekos by [[Ptolemy VI Philometor]] and his sister-wife [[Cleopatra II of Egypt|Cleopatra II]], 180-145&nbsp;BCE. The hill on which the Ombite temples stand has been considerably excavated at its base by the river, which here strongly inclines to the Arabian bank.

The crocodile was held in especial honor by the people of Ombos; and in the adjacent catacombs are occasionally found mummies of the sacred animal. Juvenal, in his [[Satires (Juvenal)|15th satire]], has given a lively description of a fight, of which he was an eye-witness, between the Ombitae and the inhabitants of Dendera, who were hunters of the crocodile. On this occasion the men of Ombos had the worst of it; and one of their number, having stumbled in his flight, was caught and eaten by the Denderites. The satirist, however, has represented Ombos as nearer to Dendera than it actually is, these towns, in fact, being nearly {{convert|100|miles}} from each other. The Roman coins of the Ombite nome exhibit the crocodile and the effigy of the crocodile-headed god Sobek.

In Kom Ombo there is a rare engraved image of what is thought to be the first representation of medical instruments for performing [[surgery]], including [[scalpel]]s, [[curette]]s, [[forceps]], [[dilator]], [[scissors]] and medicine bottles dating from the days of Roman Egypt.

At this site there is another [[Nilometer]] used to measure the level of the river waters. On the opposite side of the Nile was a suburb of Ombos, called Contra-Ombos.

The city was the seat of a [[bishop]] during [[Late Antiquity]]. Two bishops of Omboi are known by name, Silbanos (before 402) and Verses (402).<ref name=KAW>{{citation |author=Klaas A. Worp |author-link=Klaas Worp |title=A Checklist of Bishops in Byzantine Egypt (A.D. 325 – c. 750) |journal=Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik |url=https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/8214/5_039_223.pdf |volume=100 |year=1994 |pages=283–318}}, at .</ref> Under the name Ombi, it is included in the [[Catholic Church]]'s list of [[titular see]]s. Karol Wojtyła (the future [[Pope John Paul II]]) was titular bishop of Ombi from 1958 until 1963, when he was appointed Archbishop of [[Kraków]].<ref>{{Catholic-hierarchy|diocese|d2o16|Ombi|23 January 2015}}</ref>