This morning we were introduced to the sights in Aswan with a visit to Philae Island. Nick presented on the island, telling us that what we were seeing was not in fact the original: when the Aswan Dam was built, the real island was flooded; New Philae is located on Agilkea Island (formerly a raised area of land, converted into an island during the reconstruction project from 1972 to 1980). Though the buildings were placed in essentially the same layout on the new island, viewers today miss a great deal because the paint was washed off the walls of the temples there as a result of the movement of the water.
Despite this fact, Philae looks marvelous with its backdrop of sea and grasses. The main temple on the island is a temple to Isis, which was in use until about 530 CE. It looks more or less like two large stone forms of the letter H (each one part of a pronaos, or gate), connected by columned halls. The first building was donated by Psamtik II of the 26th dynasty, probably during a campaign against the Kushites (as I did my first presentation on the Third Intermediate Period, I know that Egypt was fighting off southern invaders at this time).
At the first pylon, the figures on the left side are completely defaced, though not using the ordinary scrape-it-off method: instead, they are riddled with pock-marks, which sort of makes them all look like they have leprosy. I have to say that this was quite funny, since the figures on the right side of the pylon were not defaced (they were probably behind a later dwelling or other structure, hidden from view)—it looked like the lepers were being separated from the healthy by a gate!
These gates are much larger and more elaborate than those we saw in Kharga Oasis: each pronaos in the Isis temple is composed of one of the simple, rectangular ones we saw at Hibis and Douche, flanked by two enormous stylized triangles. Over the years, additions and modifications have been made so that the structure we saw today is a mix of architecture until the time of Hadrian. Chunks of stone are missing here and there, but the temple is generally in very good shape.
Columns with alternating species of flowers, each topped with Hathor’s head, line the halls in neat rows as they once did. Where sections of stone architecture are missing, plaster or concrete replicas fill in the blank space without decoration, so as not to take attention away from the original structure. Modern restoration efforts include the placement of wooden screens on the tops of some of the rooms, presumably to simulate their original roofs. I don’t know how much this actually does for the structure, but it’s a nice change from the open halls.
The sheer number of reliefs and glyphs in this temple is absolutely mind-boggling when compared to what we’ve seen until now. The size of the structure alone is daunting for someone coming from the Oasis, and the shock is magnified when one takes a look at the artwork covering every inch of stone (it’s really amazing how they never missed a spot).
One of the most interesting things I learned at Philae was actually not about anything specific to the island; instead, it was Asharaff’s side-note that the reliefs of gods on sanctuary walls face out towards the door, as if looking at the visitor from the inside, and reliefs of kings face inward, as if to greet the gods head-on. I guess I never realized how logical the placement of glyphs and figures on the walls of these temples are; then again, I should have realized because of the attention to detail and wealth of symbolism demonstrated within them.
What I enjoyed most about the site were its minute quirks:
- Would-be stone monsters, in the form of unfinished l-shaped blocks jutting out at the top of a wall, are a nice reminder that this structure is man-made, and by people who were subject to time and financial constraints in the same way artists are today.
- The knees on the gods and goddesses are heavily stylized, with strange snake-like curves.
- Greek graffiti, including an order by a 3rd-century governor to remove all pigs from the sanctuary, marks each stage in time when the temple was in use.
- Slivers of stone are missing in several places, likely carved by worshipers who believed in the healing powers of the temple structure; the deeply-cut eyes of gods are missing their precious inlays.
- Crosses dot the unfinished blocks behind the temple.
- Blocks with straight outlines but roughly-hewn centers are a relic of relief-carving practices, which (we can infer from the stones here) involved carving sharp edges and sinking the artwork into the stone once it was securely in place, and on a rough, raised surface.
I think the most interesting elements of this temple were actually not part of its original structure; instead, I found the Greek declaration of faith, painted in red inside the sun disk on the pylon, and a carving of Silco (a Christian Nubian king, on horseback being handed what looks like a martyr’s crown) to be the most thought-provoking. I am interested in the way later peoples saw these structures, since we today have varying opinions and imagine the way the temples used to be with the bias of our cultural backgrounds.
With regards to its original composition, since Nubian, Ptolemaic and Roman styles of carving (based on the shapes of bodies) can be seen at Kalabsha, the following question must be asked: did Augustus build the temple, or did he simply restore it?
Before we left, a large stone cistern with a hole large enough for an average person to squeeze through made for a nice photo-op with Nick and Page.As we passed the small temple of Kertesy on our way back to the bus, we walked past a row of large stones with petroglyphs on them. It was nice to see something from a drastically different period of time after all of those huge pillars and pylons!
The Nubia Museum was an exercise in confusing tourists. Nothing was labeled (well, if a piece was labeled, then it was a simple label with no context)! There was a Chinese bronze on display…