Updated Philae Temple

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The internet is not working very well on the boat. That is why I’m so late with this post. And I was having problems downloading pictures. So here is the updated post for September 12.

This morning we visited :Philae Temple was built to honour the goddess Isis, the chief deity of the island. The temple sits on Aglika Island just south of the old Aswan Dam and you must ride a water taxi to the island to get to the ruins. It dates from the 26th Dynasty, with additions through the Roman period. It was moved from its original location on Philae Island, to its new location on Agilkia Island, after the flooding of Lake Nasser. It was actually under water for 30 years. A major multinational Unesco team relocated Philae, and a number of other temples that now dot the shores of Lake Nasser. You can see the submerged original island a short distance away, punctuated by the steel columns used in the moving process.

Isis (pronounced eye-sis) was a goddess in Egyptian mythology. She was a caring goddess and loved all, even her envious brother Set. She was the sister and wife of Osiris, and they had a son named Horus. Isis also protected children, healed the sick, and was goddess of life and magic.

Of Note : The Christian reused the temple as a church. They carved crosses into the older hieroglyph reliefs and images of Egyptian gods were defaced.

We returned to the boat by traditional felucca boat (a small boat propelled by oars or lateen sails or both, used on the Nile and formerly more widely in the Mediterranean region). Kids came up to the boat on some type of water board trying to sell some goods.

In late afternoon we visited the Temple of Kom Ombo. Kom Ombo temple is an unusual temple because it’s a double temple thar belongs to Sobek, the crocodile god and Horus, the falcon-headed god. Each temple has it’s own entrance, hypostyle halls and two courts. The temple is atypical because everything is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis.

They found a crypt in this temple containing 300 mummified crocodiles some of which are displayed in the Crocodile museum.

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