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Published: March 1st 2020
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I am using someone’s hotspot so this entry will not have photos until I have better wifi.
Last night we got on the train for the overnight to Aswan. The compartments are small, bunkbed style. Caroline from Australia is my roommate. They served us a good chicken dinner, then to bed. The coach jerks around from time to time, but the motion of the train is good for sleeping.
We got to Aswan and brought our luggage to the hotel. The rooms weren’t ready yet so we dropped them off and went to the Philae Temple Complex.
Philae (
/ˈfaɪliː/;
Greek: Φιλαί,
Arabic: فيله Egyptian Arabic:
,
Egyptian:
p3-jw-rķ' or 'pA-jw-rq;
Coptic: ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕ, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕⲭ
) is an
island in the reservoir of the
Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the
Aswan Dam and
Lake Nasser,
Egypt. Philae was originally located near the expansive
First Cataract of the
Nile in
Upper Egypt and was the site of an
Egyptian temple complex. These
rapids and the surrounding area have been variously flooded since the initial construction of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902.
The temple complex was dismantled and moved to nearby
Agilkia Island as part of the
UNESCO Nubia Campaign project, protecting this and other complexes before the
1970 completion of the Aswan High Dam
Since Philae was said to be one of the burying-places of
Osiris, it was held in high reverence both by the Egyptians to the north and the
Nubians (often referred to as "Ethiopians" in Greek) to the south. It was deemed profane for any but priests to dwell there and was accordingly sequestered and denominated "the Unapproachable" (
Ancient Greek: ἄβατος).
It was reported too that neither birds flew over it nor fish approached its shores.
These indeed were the traditions of a remote period; since in the time of the
Ptolemaic Kingdom, Philae was so much resorted to, partly by pilgrims to the tomb of Osiris, partly by persons on secular errands, that the priests petitioned
Ptolemy VIII Physcon (170-117 BC) to prohibit public functionaries at least from coming there and living at their expense.
The most ancient was a temple for
Isis, built in the reign of
Nectanebo I during 380-362 BC, which was approached from the river through a double
colonnade. Nekhtnebef was his
ancient Egyptian royal titulary and he became the founding pharaoh of the
Thirtieth and last native dynasty when he deposed and killed
Nepherites II.
For the most part, the other ruins
date from the Ptolemaic Kingdom, more especially with the reigns of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus,
Ptolemy V Epiphanes, and
Ptolemy VI Philometor (282-145 BC), with many traces of
Roman work in Philae dedicated to
Ammon-
Osiris.
In front of the propyla were two colossal
lions in granite, behind which stood a pair of
obelisks, each 13 metres (43 ft) high. The propyla were pyramidal in form and colossal in dimensions. One stood between the
dromos and
pronaos, another between the pronaos and the
portico, while a smaller one led into the sekos or
adyton. At each corner of the adytum stood a monolithic shrine, the cage of a sacred hawk. Of these shrines one is now in the
Louvre, the other in the Museum at
Florence.
Beyond the entrance into the principal court are small temples, one of which, dedicated to Isis, Hathor, and a wide range of deities related to
midwifery, is covered with sculptures representing the birth of Ptolemy Philometor, under the figure of the god
Horus. The story of
Osiris is everywhere represented on the walls of this temple, and two of its inner chambers are particularly rich in symbolic imagery. Upon the two great propyla are Greek inscriptions intersected and partially destroyed
by Egyptian figures cut across them.
The monuments in both islands indeed attested, beyond any others in the Nile valley, the survival of pure Egyptian art centuries after the last of the Pharaohs had ceased to reign. Great pains have been taken to mutilate the sculptures of this temple. The work of demolition is attributable, in the first instance, to the zeal of the
early Christians, and afterward, to the policy of the
Iconoclasts, who curried favour for themselves with the
Byzantine court by the destruction of
heathen images as well as Christian ones.
It's notable that images/icons of Horus are often less mutilated than the other carvings. In some wall scenes, every figure and hieroglyphic text
except that of Horus and his winged solar-disk representation have been meticulously scratched out by early Christians. This is presumably because the early Christians had some degree of respect for Horus or the legend of Horus - it may be because they saw parallels between the stories of Jesus and Horus (see
Jesus in comparative mythology#Ancient Egypt).
In 1902, the
Aswan Low Dam was completed on the Nile River by the
British. This threatened to submerge many ancient landmarks, including the temple complex of Philae. The height of the
dam was raised twice, from 1907–1912 and from 1929–1934, and the island of Philae was nearly always flooded. In fact, the only times that the complex was not underwater was when the
dam's
sluices were open from July to October.
The temples had been practically intact since the ancient days, but with each inundation the situation worsened and in the 1960s the island was submerged up to a third of the buildings all year round.
In 1960
UNESCO started a project to try to save the buildings on the island from the destructive effect of the ever-increasing waters of the
Nile. First, building three dams and creating a separate lake with lower water levels was considered.
First of all, a large
coffer dam was built, constructed of two rows of steel plates between which a 1 million
cubic metres (35 million
cubic feet) of sand was tipped. Any water that seeped through was pumped away.
Next the monuments were cleaned and measured, by using
photogrammetry, a method that enables the exact reconstruction of the original size of the building blocks that were used by the ancients. Then every building was dismantled into about 40,000 units, and then transported to
the nearby
Island of Agilkia, situated on higher ground some 500 metres (1,600 ft) away.
In the evening we took a boat to an island that the Nubians live on. When the Aswan Dam was built it flooded 20 Nubian villages and they were all relocated. We had a terrific dinner starting with orange juice, then rice, lentil soup, salad, bread, moussaka, and chicken. A banana for desert and tea. Our leader Khaled described what a Nubian wedding celebration is like.
Nubians (
/ˈnuːbiənz,ˈnjuː-/) are an
ethno-linguistic group of people who inhabit the present-day Northern
Sudan and southern
Egypt. They originate from the early
Sub Saharan African inhabitants of the
central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest
cradles of civilization.
They speak
Nubian languages, part of the
Northern Eastern Sudanic languages.
Early
Neolithic settlements from
prehistoric Egypt have been found in the central Nubian region dating back to 7000 BC, with
Wadi Halfa believed to be the oldest settlement in the central Nile valley.
Parts of
Nubia, such as
Ta-Seti (the first
nome or administrative region of
ancient Egypt), were continuously a part of
ancient Egypt throughout the dynastic era.
Other parts of Nubia, particularly
Lower or
Upper Nubia, were at times a part of ancient Pharaonic
Egypt and at other times a rival state representing parts of
Meroë or the
Kingdom of Kush. However, by the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty, all of Nubia was united with Egypt, extending down to what is now
Khartoum.
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