Philae

Another large temple site that was saved from the rising waters of the dam was the island of Philae... It was located above the original dam and for about 50 years was subject to partial inundation every year... and as they raised the dam height (which they did two or three times over the years) it became at least partially permanently under water... But the new dam was going to drown it completely so they built a new island and moved the temples... I say that so matter of factly but again its an impressive engineering feat!

The island had been a "sacred site" for many thousands of years and there are various "epochs" of temples and archaeological remains on the island.
A bunch of pictures:

Approaching the new island of Philae.

Damage caused by decades of partial submersion after the first dam was built.

 

There were vultures exactly like these lining the roofs of both the temples at Abu Simbel too.

The winged sun disc... Ra

Beautiful detail on this column

The large rock is from an earlier epoch and they built the newer temple over it.

Loads of perfectly preserved hieroglyphics.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing detail... 3000 years old or more.

The female figures never get to wear clothing but the male ones always seem to have the royal skirt?

 

Defaced figures again.

In a more recent Christian phase of the area, many of the figures were very deliberately defaced

 by a group of Christians seeking to gain favour with someone???... Bummer!

Defacing focused on the head, the fore-arms and the feet??

 

The eye of Horus... powerful totem.

Bowtie joints keep the stone blocks in exact alignment over the centuries... these joints are still in common use today for quality carpentry of table-tops and the like!

 

 

Its hard to believe that all this detailed stone-work is about 3000 years old!