Island of Philae

7:58:00 AM Out And About Global 3 Comments


Located between the Aswan high and low dams, the temple complex of Philae is one of the sites saved by Uneseco in the 1960's when the entire complex was moved to higher ground. It is quite an amazing story actually.  Due to rising water between the two dams the temple became flooded. Initially, the water would rise and recede, but eventually the only way to visit the temple was by boat. That's when Unesco stepped in. The complex was photographed then cut into 40,000 pieces, moved just a few hundred meters to a higher island and put back together like a puzzle. Check out the wikipedia page to see photos from 1908.

In the collage below notice the ancient Greek graffiti, Christian cross and original temple island. 


Those vertical marks next to the 1886 graffito are believed to be caused by boats docking at the temple when it was flooded. 

Christian usage of the temple complex is evidenced by the alter and relic niche. In almost every temple hieroglyphics of Gods and Goddesses have been defaced, this one of Isis is quite bad--One theory is Isis too closely resembled  Mary, the mother of Jesus, and so she was particularly offensive to Christians. In this scene you can see her breast feeding Horus. 

The graffito above, chiseled into the temple gate states "Bonapart's army was here..."


image-in-ing
“InspireSticky Fingers Photo Gallery
“Inspire

3 comments:

  1. NCSueMay 6, 2015 at 12:37 PM

    Fascinating!
    And the photos are wonderful.
    Thanks for sharing at http://image-in-ing.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-bubble-man.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Susan MannMay 6, 2015 at 6:42 PM

    What an amazing photos, it looks wonderful there. #thegallery

    ReplyDelete
  3. likeschocolateMay 7, 2015 at 11:02 PM

    So amazing! All of this were excursions from the ship? How many people were on board and would you do it again if you had a chance?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)