8. Aswan Area - Oct 2nd

This morning I woke up to a busy harbour scene with little passenger ferry boats going in all directions.  We are in Aswan, the final destination of our Nile cruise.  It turns out we will be taking one of these ferry boats to get to the Philae Temple.  

These little boats cris-cross the Nile River ferrying tourists and locals across the river.   They can be party boats as people can get up on the top level.  They look too precarious to me with the music is blaring,  people dancing on the top deck, the boat is riding low in the water, and ferrying around a top heavy load.  

After breakfast we disembark with our guide Osama who has come to meet us at the boat.  There is a Nile egret near the boat ramp.  

I take a picture of the front end of our boat as the sun starts to peak over the buildings.

Our cabin is close to the middle of the ship on the top cabin level. We only walk past one other room once we exit the elevator or the central stairwell, both located mid ship.  Our cabin is just aft of the middle of the ship.  

We meet up with the driver, climb into our van and head off towards the dock to pick up our passenger ferry to the Philae Temple.  

On our way I spot a family on a motorcycle.  The woman is sitting side saddle and she is breastfeeding her child.  I was impressed.  That's multi-tasking.    

We enter the dock that provides transport to Philae Island and board one of the boats.  It’s a short hop over to the island and we make sure to dip our hands into the Nile to say we had touched it.  

There are many small islands here and we cut through a channel to reach the busy dock at Philae Temple.  Our boat noses in toward the dock and we disembark by climbing off the bow.  

Philae Temple used to be on nearby Philae Island.  It was moved from Philae to its current location on Agilkia Island as part of a massive UNESCO led project "International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia".   The goal was to save about 22 monuments from being submerged due to the newly built Aswan High Dam project that was completed in 1970.   Philae temple was already being subject to periodic flooding as a result of the Aswan Low Dam project in 1902 and the completion of the new dam resulted in the temple always being flooded.  Philae was one of several sites that ended up being relocated by this UNESCO led project   It hadn’t been on the original list of temples to be relocated (it is located north of the ancient area of Nubia)  but some group’s lobbying resulted in a further commitment to move and save this important structure under the UNESCO project. 

The Philae project involved preparing a new location by leveling the Agilkia Island site to meet the contours of the original site and draining the old location which was several feet under water.  The site on Agilkia Island was over 12 meters higher than the original location.  The 95 temple structures were dismantled into 40,000 pieces from 2 to 25,000 tons, catalogued and reconstructed on the new site. The construction project lasted 4 years, finishing in 1980. 

Philae Temple complex is a grouping of many temples, the oldest being the Temple for Isis.  The complex was started during the Ptolemaic dynasty (305 to 30 BCE) which was founded by Ptolomy 1, a general of Alexander the Great and ended with the death of the last ruler, Cleopatra VII.  (After this, it was under the rule of the Romans).  The Ptolomaics built many temples to honour their many gods and this temple site is no exception.  The site also includes the temples of Horus, Imhotep, Arsenophis, Mandoulis, and Nakhtenbo.  The temple complex was used by many generations of Ptolemac and later, Romans, resulting in a diverse architecture inside the temple complex.  If all these names and the order of the dynasties are confusing, I plan to post a timeline of all these dynasties in the next blog which may or may not clear this up.  

The Philae Temple complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site (as is just about everything else here in Egypt) and is considered one of the most beautiful and well preserved temples in Egypt.  

Cruising by Philae Temple 

The island is about 67,500 square meters (about 16.7 acres) and the temple grounds cover about 1/4 of the island.  

 

We sit in this area while our guide, Osama, talks about the temple complex.  It’s such a big place and hard to imagine that the whole site was moved block by block to its present location. 

This is the Forecourt leading up to the first pylon and is the Temple’s main courtyard.  There are two parallel rows of columns on either side of the forecourt.  The tops of the columns depict palm and papyrus plants.

The first pylon.  It stands 60 ft tall and 150 ft wide.  There are two colossal lions in granite at the front entranceway into the Temple of Isis.  There used to be a pair of obelisks here as well.  One of the pair was broken into pieces in antiquity.  The surviving obelisk was discovered by an English explorer, William J. Bankes in 1815, who brought it to Dorset, England where it stands today.  (Yet another stolen artifact.)  The bilingual Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics on the obelisks were used to help decipher ancient Egyptian inscriptions.

Figures on the pylon include the mythical gods Isis, her son Horus and the pharaoh, Ptolemy XII

The second pylon is located across from the first pylon and serves as the main entrance into the inner parts of the temple.  Carved figures on the pylon included the gods Horus and Isis and the pharaoh Ptolemy VIII.  This structure is 40 ft high and 105 feet wide.  

Incorporated into the base of the pylon (right hand side) was a granite outcrop which was originally inscribed by the Kushite (now Sudan) pharaoh Taharqa who lived in 730 BCE.

The structure to the left of the pylon (the sun is shining on it.) is the Birth House or mammisi.  It is a smaller temple dedicated to the infant Horus, the falcon god.

Hypostyle Hall on the inside of the second pylon.  The doorway leads to the sanctuary.

One of the three rooms comprising the sanctuary of Iris.  This room is circa 300 BCE making the carvings over 2300 years old.  

The carvings continue to show a significant amount of detail.    

  

Trajan's Kiosk is located on the temple complex grounds.  It is described as a hypaethral temple, a building with no roof and columns forming walls.  It was built during the Roman period and is an unfinished monument to Trajan, a Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD.  

There are rectangular holes in the upper beams that indicate that timber would have been used for the roof structure.  

There was also a lot of graffiti on the inner walls where travellers to the site carved their names into the soft sandstone.  Most of the names with dates were carved during the early 1800s to the early 1900's.  No doubt, new graffiti continues to be created.  

There were other temples on site, but they were smaller in size.  We are standing in the Main Chamber, the best preserved part of the Temple of Hathor.  

Hathor was an ancient Egyptian goddess associated with sky, women, love, beauty, music, dance, and joy.  She was the daughter of the Sun god Ra and the wife of Horus.  

In the ruins of the Temple of Hathor were many relief carving of the ancient god, Bes.  He was depicted as a dwarf with a large head, big eyes, protruding tongue and a fat belly.  He was atypical in looks from all the other Egyptian gods.  His primary role was protection, especially for mothers and children during childbirth. He also had other roles. including guardian of households against evil, and the god of music, humour and dancing.  I felt this was a god worth worshipping.  

We return to the dock to leave the island.  Our boat, (it has been waiting here this whole time), pulls up to the dock and we step on to take the boat ride back.  I'm glad to be back on the water.  The temperature is close to 39 degrees.   Our ferry boat continues around the island for the return trip back.  This makes perfect sense to have a one way direction for the many boats bringing people to and from the island.  

Our next tour is to the Aswan High Dam.  Locally, it is known as the Aswan High Dam to differentiate it from the original Aswan Dam built by the British in 1902 to store floodwater to support more agriculture during the dry season.  The Low Dam included a navigation lock which allowed shipping to go further upstream but there was no pathway for aquatic wildlife to navigate these dams resulting in reduced fish populations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  The height of this dam was originally limited due to concern over flooding of the Philae Temple.  But when the height was found to be inadequate to store enough water, the height of the dam was raised twice causing the periodic flooding of Philae Temple.  We passed by the Low Dam on our way but wasn't able to snap any good pictures at 80 kph, especially since our van driver had all the curtains drawn on our van.  

The interior of today's van had curtains secured by a rope system that ran along the top and bottom of each window covering.  The curtains were even partially closed along the driver and passenger side windows creating these huge blind spots.  Fortunately we survived the day without any vehicle incident.   

When we approach the Aswan High Dam, there is a large military presence there, including a large base nearby and a checkpoint before your vehicle gets to drive part way across the top of the dam.  There are military personnel stationed thoughout the dam  and even though there is a road going right across the entire bridge, the general public is limited to only going about 1/4 of the total distance.   Our guide says that if the bridge is destroyed, the wall of water would reach Cairo in 11 minutes, hence the military presence.  Turbines in the hydro electric dam generate a significant portion of Egypt’s electricity and some of that is exported to other countries.  

The amoured vehicle at the military checkpoint at the entrance to the dam.  On the way to the dam, our guide stopped to purchase the necessary tickets and these were presented to the armed guards at the checkpoint.  

We proceed along the roadway along the top of the dam and turn around part way across and find a spot in the crowded parking area.  

I remember reading about the bridge when it was built in 1976.  It was an engineering marvel as the tallest earthen dam in the world.  Egypt is still pretty proud of it.  Planning started off with funding from Britain, USA and the World Bank, but the funding was withdrawn in 1956 when Egypt made an arms deal with the Soviet aligned Czechoslovakia.  This was during the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.  Egyptian President Nasser had previously been seen as an anti-communist leader, but after Israeli aggression against Egyptian forces, he sought to modernize the Egyptian military.  The American military deal had too many restrictions, so in the end, he accepted a Soviet deal.   Then to fund the dam, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal (resulting in the Suez Crisis) and received financial assistance and expertise from Russia.  Construction began in 1960 and finished in 1970.  

View looking north from the top of the Dam

In this and the next picture, the height of the dam isn't very well captured by these photos, but I can confirm that it's pretty much straight down to the Nile River.  It's still a steep slope to Lake Nasser but less so than the North side of the dam.  

View looking south.  This is Lake Nasser that formed behind the dam and stretches into Sudan (Sudan calls their part Lake Nubia).  It was named after the Egyptian President who was in place when the dam was built.  The Lake is 479km long (Vancouver Island is 460km long) and 16km across at its widest point.  It is the second largest man made body of water by surface area.  

The native population of Southern Egypt and Sudan are Nubians and many were forced to relocate from their ancestral lands due to the flooding of Lake Nasser.   

The top of the dam has a large number of sun faded information boards about the dam:  construction phases, aerial views, maps, cross sections, elevation, electricity generated, etc.  We look at a few of these, but there is a lot of detail and it's hot out and pretty uncomfortable on the pavement. 

On our way out I get a picture of the Soviet Egyptian Friendship Monument that commemorates the Soviet Union's assistance in the dam's construction.  It was designed to resemble a lotus flower, one of the many symbols of Egypt.  

Our guide asks us if we want to see the Unfinished Obelisk.  It's in a quarry back in Aswan where a giant obelisk was started to be carved out around 1500 BCE, but was later abandoned, due to cracks in the granite.  It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected and would have weight just over 1,000 tons.  This is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.  

Unfortunately, it's hard to see just how large this stone obelisk is from my picture.  If it was finished, it would have been about 41.75 metres (137 ft) high.  

We came back to the Soleil cruise boat to have lunch and rest a bit before we went out on our next excursion.  This time were were to sail on a felucca, a traditional wooden sailing boat.  

Feluccas are single sail boats popular on the Nile River.  I took this picture of a felucca sailing past our cruise ship.  

This was our captain putting up the sail.  It's a popular tourist thing as it's a very fun and pleasant sail, especially if you like sailing like I do.  We were out on the water for about an hour sailing down and then back up river with a number of tacking manoeuvres thrown in when necessary.  I love the feel and the sound of the wind on the sails.  It was a really awesome excursion except maybe at the very end, when the captain miscalculated and we had a hard bow slam into the dock.  Whoops.

We came back to the cruise ship and rested before dinner.  On our way down we met our room steward and he said he would make some towel art for us tonight.  We confirmed with him that it would be our last night on the boat, so he said he would do something special.  

We had another great dinner on the upper deck.  When we came back to the room we found a new friend.

This guy was the most interesting towel art I've ever seen.  I ended up taking a fun selfie with him.

We repack our luggage before we head to bed as we're flying back to Cairo in the morning.  

Footnote:  Clearly I am writing this at blog at home now.  My cold made me pretty tired during the rest of my trip and I ended up sleeping instead of blogging.  But I am committed to finishing this one.  No guarantees though...