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 Though the monuments of Philae Island are now located on
the nearby reworked Island of Agilika, and Philae is now
buried beneath the waters of the lake formed between the Old
Aswan Dam and the
High Dam, Philae and the neighboring island of Biggeh to the west,
in ancient times, formed an integrated religious complex devoted to the cult of
Osiris. The ritual focus was Biggeh, the site of the abaton,
one of the alleged tombs of Osiris. At Philae, regular visits
were paid every tenth day by
Isis to the island of Bigeh and
the tomb of Osiris.
There are many legends connected to Philae, but the most
well known one tells the story of how
Isis
found the heart of
Osiris
here after his murder by his brother Seth. Each evening
there is a Sound and Light Show which recounts the legends
against the magnificent backdrop of the floodlit monuments -
a truly magical experience.
Tourist boats on their way to visit the
Temples of Philae in Egypt
Philae was dedicated preeminently to
Isis, sister-wife to
Osiris, and patroness of the Ptolemaic rule. Although Isis was
the major deity honored therein, the location of the island on
the frontier between
Egypt and
Nubia meant that cults of Nubia were also featured
on the island,
 represented by significant cult buildings.
There was some evidence at the actual island of Philae of cult activity in honor
of
Amun, in the time of King
Taharqa, who ruled Egypt between
689 and 664 BC in the
25th dynasty, and who
probably built an altar of granite to Amun. Perhaps the Kushites, when
invading Egypt, established a stronghold on Philae. Traces of
mudbrick houses in trenches between the stone foundations of
the later temples and the early
nilometer west of the
mammisi
may date to this period.
 The monuments on the island are dominated by the great
temple of
Isis and its associated structures, which are
concentrated in the west and center of the island, on, or
adjacent to, a
granite outcrop which must have been originally
chosen as an embodiment of the primeval hill on which the
first temple was said to have rested. This hill was reproduced
on the new location of the monuments at Agilika.
The
Taharqa altar to
Amun is the earliest evidence of structures
on the island. The known history of Philae does not go back
farther than that, and it was not until the
Ptolemaic and
Roman
Periods that Philae rose to importance. The priests believed
their island had a far longer history, and as stated above,
an inscription at the frontier on the island of Sehel states
that as early as the 3rd Dynasty,
Djoser gave them the
country from the First Cataract to the island of Derar. (Dodekaschoinoi)
During Ptolemaic times they held the gold mines of Wadi Alaki
within their administrative sphere.
But the earliest known cult building in honor of
Isis,
known to the Egyptians as Aset, was a small shrine erected in
the Saite period by
Psamtik II. This was followed by a further
small temple on the granite outcrop, erected by
Amasis. So it
now seems that the Saite kings
 introduced the cult of Isis
into this area and laid the foundations for her subsequent
glorification on the island.
The next evidence of building, and the earliest surviving
monument of Philae, dates to the
30th
Dynasty. Beginning at the ancient quay where boats now land at
the southwestern corner of the great temple, the first
structure is the kiosk of
Nectanebo I,
though one may first notice the obvious seating for the
sound and light show. The kiosk or vestibule of
Nectanebo is a hall with screen walls linked by graceful
columns. Of its original fourteen
Hathor pillars, only six remain. The screens between the
columns are some six feet high, crowned with concave
cornices and rows of
uraeus-serpents.
The screens are carved with reliefs showing Nectanebo
sacrificing to the gods.
 From
Nectanebo's monument north, there are two
colonnades, one on the east side and another on the west
of an outer courtyard that leads to the first temple pylon. The western half of the colonnade is the more complete, and
is pierced with windows originally looking toward the island
of Biggeh. A nilometer descends the cliff from here. The
colonnade is about one hundred yards long and contains
thirty-one of the original thirty-two columns. The column
capitals tops are floral, and remarkable in their variety
with no two being alike. Most of the columns show carvings
of Tiberius offering gifts to the gods. The ceiling, which
is mostly destroyed, is decorated with stars and and flying
vultures, while the rear wall has two rows of bas-reliefs of
Tiberius
and Agustus
offering to the gods.
The eastern colonnade was never completed. On the south
it abuts the temple of
Arsenuphis, or Iry-hemes-nufer just to the north of the
vestibule of Nectanebo. Arensnuphis was an obscure Nubian lion-god
venerated as the companion of
Isis.
The temple was built by
Ptolemy IV Philopator and extended by
Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Here, the reliefs depict Ptolemy V
before Isis and other gods, and also Ptolemy IV before
Isis,
Horus and Unnefer. The shrine was enclosed by walls that
are ruined in some places but which have representations of
Tiberius
worshipping
Osiris,
Isis, Harsieses (Horus the Elder),
Nephthys,
Khnum,
Satis,
Anukis, Arsenuphis and
Tefnut.
The eastern colonnade is partly roofed and has seventeen
columns, only six of which have their capitals completed.
Behind (to the north) of the Temple of
Arsenuphis and to the east of the eastern colonnade is
the ruined chapel of
Mandulis, another Nubian deity. At the northern end
 of
the colonnade is the Temple of
Imhotep. In it,
Ptolemy V Epiphanes is shown before the deified Imhotep.
Just beyond the temple of
Imhotep and the first Great Pylon of the Temple of
Isis
is the Gate of
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, with depictions of the
Ptolemaic Pharaoh being led forward by Isis.
Just before the main gateway to the first pylon are two
Roman style lions carved from pink granite that have been
re-erected on this island from their fallen position on the
old Island of Philae. Two
obelisks once also stood here, erected by
Ptolemy VIII
Euergetes II and his second wife, Cleopatra III (who by
the way is not the more famous
Cleopatra
VII). On the base of the eastern obelisk was the
inscription complaining to the royal that the priests of
Isis
at Philae were being forced to refund the expenses of civil
and military authorities incurred during their stay on the
island.
These obelisks made of pink granite are not lost to us,
but may now be found at Kingston Lacy in Dorset in the UK.
The eastern obelisk, which measures 6.7 meters tall and
weighs six tons, was found on its side half-buried and its
western counterpart was badly damaged and only
 about a third
of it remained. They were taken by Mr. Ralph Bankes for his
garden. Interestingly, they were partly instrumental in the
decipherment of hieroglyphics. The Rosetta Stone
bears many inscription of Ptolemy in hieroglyphics,
demotic script and Greek. From these inscriptions, it
was possible for the French Egyptologist
Jean-Francois Champollion to identify the
hieroglyphic form of the name, by using the same method, Bankes pointed out the hieroglyphic form of
the name, Cleopatra, which was unknown before. But these
obelisks, or at least the eastern one, has a more
interesting history than this.
Two of the most avid collectors of antiquities in Egypt
around this time (1819) were the British Consul,
Henry Salt, and the Consul-General of France, Bernardino
Drovetti. They both gave money to local chiefs throughout
Egypt who then saw to it that other collectors were either
warned off or not supplied with labor. It was Salt, of
course, who actually obtained the obelisks for Ralph Bankes,
and Salt was lucky enough to have as his agent the giant
Italian adventurer,
Giovanni Belzoni, nicknamed the strongman of Egyptology.
On hearing of this matter concerning the obelisks at
Philae, Drovetti claimed that they belonged to him, but
grandly ceded the ownership to Bankes. Belzoni, who Salt
tasked with their transport, thought that Drovetti had found
it impossible to find ways of transporting the first
 obelisk
(the complete, eastern one) through the cataract and had
relinquished his claim for this reason. Given the size of
the obelisk, he may have been right.
The obelisk was levered and pushed on rollers to a stout
wooden pier for shipment, "But, alas," writes Bezoni, "when
the obelisk came gradually from the sloping bank and all its
weight rested on it, the pier, with the obelisk and some of
the men, took a slow movement, and majestically descended
into the river."
Nevertheless, Belzoni and his men hauled it out of the
mud and got it loaded onto a boat for its journey to
Cairo. Yet the
story does not end there, for Drovetti had, it seems, not
given up. Drovetti's men intercepted Belzoni on his way to
Aswan and it was only after a long altercation which ended
in gun-fire and the arrival of Drovetti himself that the
monument was allowed to proceed on its way. It was shipped
to England on the Despatch in May, 1821 and not erected in
Bankes garden until 1827. In the interval, Bankes returned
to Egypt in 1822 to collect the broken western obelisk.
This leads us up to the first pylon, beyond which is the
temple of
Isis
proper.
Home | Next
See Also
Resources:
- The Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
ed. By Katherine Bard
- Island of Isis, Philae, Temple of the Nile by
William MacQuitty
- A Guide to the Antiquities of Ancient Egypt by
Arthur Weigall
- The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
- Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt by Richard
Wilkinson
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