Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1984 - 51

to Philae
Approach
one of a group of granite islands strewn along the
Nile River south of Aswan, was considered to be the
Philae,most beautiful site in Egypt. It was regarded by the
ancient Egyptians as particularly sacred, although they did
not build temples on it until late in their history : the earliest
monuments date to Nectanebo I (380-362 b.c.).
Although only 500 yards (460 meters) long and 160 yards
(147 meters) wide, Philae housed no fewer than six temples,
besides other buildings, the greatest of which was dedicated
to the worship of Isis, wife of Osiris. Legend has it that after
the murder of her husband by his brother, Seth, who dismembered Osiris' body, Isis took the left leg of Osiris and
buried it on Philae's neighboring island, Biga. It was the
waters of decomposition flowing from this leg that, the
Egyptians believed, formed the source of the Nile.
When Frith visited Philae in 1857, he was enchanted by
the place, considering it to be "the most beautiful thing in
Egypt." When the Old Dam was built at Aswan some 50 years
after Frith's visit, the island of Philae was submerged for
most of the year beneath the reservoir behind the dam. And
the erection of the new High Dam in the 1960s meant that
Philae stood in swirling water between the two dams, in danger
of disintegration. Happily, Philae has been saved; its temples
have been dismantled and reerected on the nearby island of
Agilkia, specially reconstructed to the same shape as Philae
island itself. Once again, Philae deserves the epithet bestowed
upon it by the French novelist, Pierre Loti (1850-1923): "the
Pearl of the Nile."
The

The

and Columns
at Soleb
Temple
which lies to the south of the First Cataract at
Aswan, was regarded by the rulers of Egypt as a land
Nubia,to be exploited and colonized. In the New Kingdom
(1560-1085 B.c.) in particular, many kings had temples
constructed there, not least Amenhotep III who commissioned
several.
Soleb Tfemple,which was erected around 1400 B.c., is the
most southerly of Amenhotep Ill's temples, lying 55 miles (90
kilometers) above the Third Cataract. Frith 's pictures show
the elegant columns of the temple, with their capitals carved in
the shape of closed papyrus umbrels, reminiscent of Amenhotep
Ill's colonnaded court at Luxor Temple. At Soleb, however,
unlike Luxor, Amenhotep was worshipped as a god during his
own lifetime.
A granite lion, now in the British Museum, was found
unfinished in a quarry by T'itankhamun's workmen shortly
after he ascended the throne. The young king ordered it to
be completed to match a lion already in the Soleb Tfemple;and
in an inscription on the new lion, T'itankhamun explicitly
calls Amenhotep III his father. Although this term is often
used with the meaning "forefather" in Egyptian inscriptions,
here it is thought that it should be taken literally, and thàt
Amenhotep III actually was the father of Ttotankhamun.
Soleb Tfemplelies 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) upstream
from Aswan; travelers may marvel at the ability of the
Egyptians to build such temples so far south of their border,
but Frith had to travel 1,170 miles from Alexandria into the
Sudan nine years before the opening of the Suez Canal and 25
years before the British sent General Charles Gordon to pacify
the Sudan. In 1885,the Mahdi's soldiers killed Gordon at Khartoum. Indeed^ Frith carried on until he reached the Sixth
Cataract, only the second European and the first photographer
to do so.
Today, Soleb is safely beyond the reach of Lake Nasser,
but it is also out of reach of most travelers, not because of the
danger from dervishes, but because of the prohibitive cost of
getting there. Gone are the days when, like Amelia Edwards,
who sailed nearly one thousand miles up the Nile in 1873, the
traveler could hire a dahabeyah (a flat-bottomed Nile boat)
complete with 19 crewmen and a guide, to take six passengers
and two maidservants at a total of £10 per day.

The

Great Pylon
at Edfu
which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) to the south of
Luxor, was an important city from the beginning of
Edfu, Egyptian history. TVadition had it that Imhotep, the
architect of the Step Pyramid at Sakkara, built a temple there
according to a plan "that fell from heaven," but the great
sandstone temple that Frith photographed and that still stands
1984 51
November/December

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1984

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1984