Apollinopolis Magna

APOLLINOPOLIS MAGNA (Idfu) Egypt.

A city on the W bank of the Nile, 105 km S of Thebes, noted by Strabo (17.1.47). It was the throne of Horus, whom the Greeks identified with Apollo, and it continued to be an important religious center all through the Classical period. The capital of the second nome of Upper Egypt, it owed its prosperity to its situation on the caravan road to Nubia. Its temple (137 x 79 m), begun by Ptolemy III in 237 B.C., was completed in 57 B.C. Its pylon is 36 m high.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Porter & Moss, Top. Bibl., V. Upper Egypt: Sites (1937) 200-5; id., VI. Upper Egypt: Chief Temples (1939) 119-77; A. H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica II (1947) 6*-7*; K. Michalowski, L'Art de l'Ancienne Étgypte (1968) 544-46PI.

S. SHENOUDA