Philae and Elephantine

Philae and Elephantine

We started the day at a granite quarry in Aswan where there is  an “unfinished” obelisk lying in the place where it was shaped in the quarry. It was mean to be the largest obelisk in Egypt commissioned by Hatshepsut, the Queen who governed as King and Pharaoh and whose relics are as much in the Met as here. The obelisk broke during its creation and was abandoned. It has been lying in the quarry for about 3,500 years.

We took a motor launch to the island of Agilkia which formerly was an undistinguished outcrop of rock.  After the High Dam was created, the temple on Philae was threatened with destruction so it was dismantled into 250,000 pieces and rebuilt on nearby Agilkia which everyone now refers to as Philae.

The temple is reminiscent of Dendur (Metropolitan Museum) which was not very far away. Dendur was built in Augustus’  time and Philae, which is perhaps five times  larger and more beautiful, was built primarily by the Ptolemies and added to by the Romans. The latest part of the temple was a “kiosk” built in honor of Trajan by order of Hadrian. It is very interesting to see this temple and compare it to the Pantheon in Rome which was built at exactly the same time. They are both beautiful but, although the Romans built this temple on Philae, they adopted many Egyptian building motifs. The columns are a mixture of Roman and Egyptian and there is no obsession with symmetry.

In the afternoon, we visited the outdoor archaeological site of Elephantine. It is an active site worked on by Swiss and German teams and is amazing because it has buildings (and fragments of buildings) from the Old Kingdom right through Roman rule in one small area. Buildings have been reassembled with original material and clearly marked filler so you don’t have the problem we encountered in Mexico of not knowing what is real and what is hypothesized. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a book on the site. To my surprise, our guide knew all about the Elephantine Papyri and briefly mentioned them.

Tomorrow, off to Lake Nasser and a four day cruise down to Abu Simbel. I don’t think there will be internet access while cruising but I will take notes.