Temple of Philae

History of Ancient Egypt is full of soap opera. What do you think of this story: Isis is the wife and sister of Osiris. Their brother Seth is very jealous of the popularity of the couple. He decides to kill Osiris and chops him into small pieces that he scatters around Egypt. Isis naturally is devastated and tries to collect the pieces and reconstruct Osiris. She manages to do this and is able to have sex with the body one last time. She gets pregnant and gives birth to Horus, another god of Ancient Egypt traditionally depicted as a falcon. Temple of Philae is accounted as one of the burying-places of Osiris. All the family members, Isis, Osiris and Horus, are found however in every tomb and temple of Egypt.

We woke up early to get to the temple of Philae (a few kilometres south of Aswan) before the tourist crowds. At 7 o'clock only the French groups were there with us. The temple had been under water for half a century when the first dam in Nile was built. Finally in the 1960s UNESCO started a project in order to preserve the temple built originally around 380 BC. It was relocated in the island next to the original location. The change of colour in the stones indicate the level of water before this saving operation.

The stories behind the images are always about the same. At the end of our trip in Egypt, we knew pretty well the different gods in Ancient Egypt. Here, of course, an offering to Osiris.

Other tourists (loooong) before us had carved their names in the stones. The style is the same as nowadays: "B. Mure stultus est" (B. Mure is an idiot).