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 .

When plans were drawn up at the end of the nineteenth century to build a great barrage across the Nile at Aswan, it became apparent to the world of archaeology that a very large part of the archaeological inheritance of ancient Egypt in Nubia was threatened with destruction . The sites of towns, settlements and cemeteries were in greatest danger, particularly as most of them were unexcavated and many had never been satisfactorily identified . The creation of a great artificial lake behind the Aswan Dam would flood these anciently areas and wipe out for ever what still remained ; mud-brick walls will not resist prolonged soaking . As for the stone-built monuments, concern was not at that time so very great, because most of them would re-emerge from the waters for some months every year when the river level lowered during the period of the Nile flood . An exception, however, was the island of Philae with its complex of temples set among palm trees . The setting was romantic, the antiquities evocative . Archaeologists were shocked at the idea of having these important monuments under water for most of the year . Romantic travellers were appalled at the prospect of the loss of the most famous beauty spot in Egypt .

Such was the loss when the Aswan Dam was built . For many people Egypt would never be the same again . Philae had been the climax to a winter's visit to Egypt for so many travellers . And lost it was ; for although Egyptologists never forgot the temples, the setting and the landscape were gone . For the visitor to Egypt, Philae became a name only, not, in general, a place to visit . With the construction of the great new dam south of Aswan, new troubles for Philae emerged . According to the new situation, Philae lay between the old and the new dams, partly submerged in the intervening lake and subjected to constant fluctuations in the water level . In a relatively short time, this ebb and flow of the water would wreck the scenes and inscriptions on the temple walls, and in due course bring the structures down .

Now, we will tell the story of Philae's place in history and of the imaginative way in which Philae is to be saved . It is not a story of expectation which may never come to pass . Work is already well advanced towards the removal of the Philae temples to the island of Agilkia at a higher level above the water . It was not be long before visitors may once again take a boat across the lake and step ashore on the substitute holy island . For some years, no doubt, there will remain a strong feeling of artificiality about the new site . But nature will intervene, trees will grow, the marks of heavy engineering will be obliterated . And the temples will in fact be the real temples of Philae . There seems a very good chance that once again Philae may become the climax of the Egyptian visit . This will be the bonus to be enjoyed by the many thousands of visitors who will journey to Egypt every year . It is a bonus over and above the archaeological rescue of a very important complex of monuments, for which Egyptologists and the world at large have to thank UNESCO . After Abu Simbel comes Philae . What is all the fuss about ? Why so much money for such a project ? Now, those who will come and see rescued Philae will know at least part of the answer .

Most people who visited the Tutankhamun Exhibition in The British Museum in 1972 were perhaps only dimly aware that the proceeds from this exhibition in all places where it was held were to go towards the UNESCO fund for preserving the temples of Philae . They may have been rather more aware of the splendid photographs of Philae which lined part of their route as they trailed towards the entrance of the Museum in the never-ending queue, and they formed a valuable part of the " stage-setting " which prepared the visitors for the dramatic experience which lay before them .

Our particular interest in the site of Philae, and in the problems of its rehabilitation, springing from our passion for the land of Egypt, its people and its monuments, has now brought us to the writing of this subject . The story of Ptolemaic Egypt is not one that is familiar even to those people who profess an interest in ancient Egypt . But it is a story of great fascination, in its intrigues and scandals more akin to Renaissance Italy than to Pharaonic Egypt . It provides the background against which the buildings on the island of Philae arose . The illustrations which enrich the text are, in many cases, of little-known monuments . They evoke a strange period in the history of ancient Egypt, and reveal an architecture and art which, while recalling ancient Egypt, are peculiar to the Graeco-Roman period . This subject should do much to familiarize general visitors with this period and help them to appreciate the particular virtues of its monuments . It also celebrates the rebirth of Philae, the " Pearl of Egypt " .

Philae and the Great Aswan Dam

A short distance up-stream from the island of Sehel ( also called Siheil ), the Nile is crossed by the great Aswan dam ( The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam ), which the construction has been begun in 1899 and finished in 1902, and the height of the dam was raised twice ; in 1912 and again in 1934, for the purpose of storing up water during the winter in order that it may become available when the Nile is low during early summer . This gigantic work, in which modern engineering has shown that it can worthily rival the construction of the Pharaohs, has taken three stages to construct and develop its full capacity . As at first completed, between 1899 and the end of 1902, it was 130 feet high, and its thickness, 23 feet at the top, reached 98 feet at the bottom . It had not been long in use before it was decided to raise it another 16½ feet, and increase its thickness correspondingly, and this was accomplished between 1907 and 1912 . Finally it has been decided to raise the dam another 18 feet, and It has been completed in 1934 .

Our concern with this great and beneficent work, which has so greatly increased the productivity of Egypt, is limited to the question of how it has affected and will affect such antiquities as lie within the levels which are reached, or will be reached, by the impounded water when the reservoir is full . The list of temples, tombs and fortresses which are more or less submerged between the First and Second Cataract during the winter season includes the following buildings : the temples of Philae and the temple of Bigeh, the Temple of Debod ( now in Madrid, Spain ), the Tombs of Wadi Hedid, the fortress and quarries of Qertassi, the Temple of Tafa – also called Taffeh - ( now in The Dutch National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden, Netherlands ), the Temple of Beit el-Wali, the Temple of Kalabsha, the Temple of Dendur ( now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ), The temple of Gerf Hussein, the Temple of Qurta, the Temple of El-Dakka, the fortress of Koshtamna, the fortress of Kuban ( or Quban, it known to the Egyptians as Baki and to the Greeks as Contra Pselchis ), the Temple of El-Maharraqa, the Temple of Wadi El-Sebua or Valley of the Lions ( so-called because of the sphinx-lined approach to the temple forecourts ) ; the Temple of Amada, the Temple of Derr, the Temple of Ellesyia ( now in Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy – also called The Egyptian museum in Torino ), the Village of Aniba and the Tomb of Penenut ( also called Miam ), the Island of Qasr Ibrim, Abu Simbel temples, the Temple of Abu Oda, Gebel Adda Cemeteries, the tomb of Djehuti-hotep at Debeira, the fortress of Buhen ( The temple of Horus in The National Museum of Sudan at Khartoum ), Semna in the west bank and Kumma in the east bank ( now in The National Museum of Sudan at Khartoum ), and others that we will talk about them later in another subject .

And with the new extension of the dam all these temples, tombs and fortresses had been further submerged, and the great lake formed by the reservoir was extend further up-stream . The Nubians have been resettled, many of them around Kom Ombo, far away from their whitewashed houses so beautifully decorated with vivid paintings of birds, flowers, animals, boats and even aeroplanes . The new homes stretch in orderly lines amongst fertile land, well-watered and safe from the vagaries of the river . In time the new generations will forget the past and merge into the Egyptian way of life .

The main loss, to the ordinary visitor, is, of course, that of the beautiful island of Philae, formerly – before the construction of the great Aswan dam in 1902 - the beauty-spot of Upper Egypt, with its palms and its striking grouping of temples which, however late in date, appeared to offer the very essentials of Egyptian architecture to the casual observer . Philae and the other sites mentioned were subjected to close examination and preparation in view of the approaching trial to which they were to be subjected ; and before the dam was erected it was confidently affirmed that, owing to the underpinning and other stabilizing work to which they were treated, they were stronger than ever, and would suffer nothing from their submersion . In actual fact, however, these comfortable expectations have been disappointed . Philae, even when its buildings are visible, is a very different Philae from what it was . The submerged stone has become coated with a grey discoloration due to minute filaments of dead algae, which give a most unpleasant and indeed disgusting appearance to the once beautiful stone, and the carvings and inscriptions are gradually ' decaying and ready to vanish away ', so that M. Barsanti warned his chiefs of the Service of Antiquities that they ' must resign themselves to see them disappear little by little ' . Now that the submersion is to be deeper and more prolonged, less and less will be seen of Philae, and we shall have to console ourselves with the thought that, after all, the temples of the island belonged only to the period of Egypt's decline . What Philae has suffered is being repeated, in less degree, in the other partly submerged temples, some of which have associations going considerably further back than those of ' the Pearl of Egypt ' .

To be continued ....

Part ( 2 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....

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