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Photo from the collection of Michael G. Wilson, courtesy of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

The double temple at Kom Ombo, about 25 miles north of Aswan in Upper Egypt, was built during the reign of the Ptolemies, Greek kings who ruled Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. until the Roman conquest in 30 B.C. The structure at Kom Ombo fused two cult temples—dedicated to the crocodile-headed god, Sobek, and to the falcon-headed deity, Horus—into a single structure. When Frith visited the temple, he was shocked to learn that the pasha was looting its massive stone blocks to build foundations for his sugar refineries.