"Every part of Egypt is interesting and curious,
but the only place to which the epithet beautiful can be
correctly applied is the island of Philae... "
Robert Curzon, from 'Visits to the Monasteries of the Levant', 1834
"...The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it on either side, and the purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and even higher against the sky. They show no sign of ruin or age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air - if a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and pylons - we should not think it strange".
Amelia Edwards, 1873
Gift from Sementawy Horembeb, the dear friend!
There are only temple buildings on the Island of Philae, except for the occasional abode for temple workers, but there is the Whyt of Philae, a nice little village with commodities like a market place, a tavern, and great land for building estates or villas. This is where the people from MenNefer and Waset like to exchange the cool winter winds for warm winds and sun, all year around!
The little island of Philae, an alluvium covered rock of granite, only 460 x 150 m, is situated ca 8 km south of the Assuan Dam in Upper Egypt, in an area which in ancient times made out the border to Nubia.
The ancients named it "Island of the Time [of Re]", by which is meant the place where the primeval world was recreated in the time of Reīs rule on earth. The well known name of Philae is Greek, itīs ancient Egyptian name was P-aaleq, also meaning "End" or "Remote Place", which later turned into the Coptic 'Pilak'.
Incidentally, Philae is located at 24 degrees North and 33 degrees East, which is almost at the tropic of Cancer, i.e. this is where the sun reaches its highest point and stops at the summer solstice to turn in its course and go southwards again.
The earliest traces of buildings are some blocks from the period of Taharqa, 690-664 B.C. Some blocks from the New Kingdom period have also been found but they might have been transported there at another time. If there were buildings of an official character before the building blocks of Taharqa, archaeology has so far been unable to prove it and so the field lies open to speculation. It might be closer at hand that some temple or shrine structure was erected on the neighboring island of Bigeh, as this is a more dominating feature in the small archipelago, but even so Bigeh was overshadowed by the rather large island now called el-Heisa.
This became the center of the worship of Isis at that time, a place where pilgrims travelled from all over the Mediterranean world, as well as from Nubia, and where the priesthood took care of the ceremonies and the rituals to the goddess. Legend has it that this was the place where Isis found the heart of Osiris and that she, after having collected his shattered body, buried him on the Island of Bigeh, just across the narrow stretch of water to the west.
In 545 A.D. the temples were closed by order from the Roman Emperor Flavius Anicius Justinianus. The priesthood was chased away or put in prison and the art of reading and writing hieroglyphs was forgotten. Thus ended not only a religion but a way of life and a form of art that had spread all across the Mediterranean, far beyond the Two Lands of Egypt.
Art by David Roberts
Background photo: Mirjam Nebet
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