Philae Island .. The Outer Court of the Temple of Isis .. Part ( 5 )

The temple of Nectanebos

We begin our survey of the temples of Philae with the south-western corner of the island from The temple of Nectanebos . The temple of Nectanebos, which is the earliest temple on the island .

Philae Island .. The rescue of Philae .. Part ( 4 )

The rescue project of Philae

When the second Aswan dam was opened in 1971, Philae – dating from Ptolemaic times and regarded as the most beautiful of Egyptian temples – was trapped beneath the waters between the old and the new dam . UNESCO, aided by the Egyptian government, sponsored the rescue of the temples in an enterprise of imagination and skill on a grand scale .

Philae Island .. Isis and Osiris .. Part ( 3 )

The worship and priests of Isis

The worship of Isis at Philae was the culmination of the religion of Ancient Egypt . Two thousand years earlier the Ancient Egyptian believed that in the beginning there was nothing but a waste of darkness and chaos . From this, emerged the sun-god Atum, who came into existence by himself and produced a god, Shu, and a goddess, Tefnut ( Tefnet or Tfenet ) .

Philae Island .. Geographical & Historical informations .. Part ( 2 )

Geographical informations about the Philae area

Philae itself is an island situated at the beginning of the First Cataract, from which the river descends on its way to the Mediterranean Sea . Today a modern road skirts the Cataract and follows the crest of the first Aswan Dam, giving a splendid view of the Cataract and the island of Siheil where traders inscribed their names on the numerous rocks and boulders before continuing on their way to Central Africa, the " Land of Ghosts " .

Philae Island – Historical Notes .. Part ( 1 )

Foreword

It does not often happen that a calamity is reversed, especially in the fields of archaeology and the environment . A barrow ploughed flat by a careless or rapacious farmer can never be reconstituted ; a country house demolished for redevelopment cannot be restored to what it once was, even if it is lovingly rebuilt according to its ancient form ; a countryside ruined by an industrial complex or a motorway can never be quite the same again . Yet a distinction can be made between the destruction of the man-made and the devastation of a landscape ; the former may be thought irrevocable, the latter a change which time will repair . Nature will not restore precisely, but she has the power to rehabilitate, to wipe out the rapacities of man, to replace what has been lost with something perhaps even better .