Ancient and Modern Marvels in Aswan

After breakfast we ambled back through the small and winding streets of Elephantine Island to take the ferry across to the mainland, where our host had arranged a driver to take us to the sites of the day.

We began with a drive south through the city to see the Aswan High Dam, an engineering marvel constructed in the 1960s to regulate the flooding of the Nile and provide hydroelectric power. This project effectively replaced the previous Low Dam which was constructed 60 years earlier around the turn of the century for the same reasons. Our drive brought us entirely across this older edifice and to the midsection of the newer, where there is a small ticket center and several diagrams depicting cross sections and various other technical tidbits concerning this mammoth structure.

The dam itself is quite thick, being a substantial causeway with gently sloping sides rather than a thin and precarious barrier, and contains 17 times the material of the Great Pyramid in Giza. Its base stretches for almost a kilometer across the northern end of Lake Nasser, the 132 cubic km reservoir created by the dam upon its completion.

This artificially created body of water displaced nearly 100,000 people living in the area, and threatened to covered the locations of several ancient monuments. Several of these were chosen to be saved from the threatening man made inundation and were moved to higher ground on the shores of the new lake. Chief among these fortunate ruins is the temple complex at Abu Simbel, which we plan to visit tomorrow, but also saved were a variety of other, less well known sites.

After leaving the dam we headed to one of these relocated ruins, the temple complex of the island of Philae which now resides on Agilkia Island between the Low and High dams, formerly situated near the end of the sprawling First Cataract. These picturesque ruins include a relatively modern pylon temple and colonnades from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history, approximately around 300 BC. Periodically flooded, these ruins (the Kiosk of Trajan in particular) were a favorite subject of romantic painters.

Our stroll through this site was reminiscent of our earlier visit to the Temple of Luxor and Karnak, but we noticed several stylistic differences in the hieroglyphics and murals which plastered the walls. In particular the figures appeared more voluptuous. Several other Greek and Roman touches were evident, such as elaborate capitals on the columns which parted from the traditional and basic floral (papyrus or lotus blossom) scheme of classical Egypt.

Leaving these tranquil ruins we headed back to the city for our last stop of the day at the old northern quarry in Aswan. Much of various types of granite used in the pyramids and monumental structures of the Old through New Kingdoms originated in Aswan, which does not come as a surprise after seeing the rocky landscape of this southern region. The northern quarry is particularly famous for containing an unfinished obelisk of a truly epic size commissioned by Queen Hatshepsut around 1500 BC for one of her many building projects (which included several other obelisks at Karnak). Work on this monument was abandoned after cracks appeared in the granite, perhaps a result of its extraordinary large size (it is nearly 1/3 larger than any other finished Egyptian obelisk).

Today the obelisk is significant for providing insights into Egyptian construction techniques. Resting in the quarry at an incline (following the general slope of the surrounding rock), the obelisk is still connected to the bedrock along its bottom flank. Evidently the ancient Egyptians carved the structure in one piece from the living rock, diving down along its edges before moving inwards to free its belly. How they then moved these massive stones (let alone carve them out) is still a marvel, which cannot really be appreciated until one sees this monumental structure still enshrined amidst the rocky slopes of the quarry.

Still pondering these ancient feats we departed, heading through a nearby cemetery of mixed faiths back towards the Nile, where we enjoyed a late lunch before returning to Elephantine Island in preparation of an early start the next day for Abu Simbel.

-Theodore

The view from the rooftop of our Airbnb on Elephantine Island

Through the small streets of the island to the ferry

 Forests of electrical towers in the desert herald the approach of the High Dam

On the dam looking North onto the Nile

Looking South onto Lake Nasser

Tut 1 and Mummy in front of the Temple of Isis of Philae

An ornate capital of a column in the outer court

The colonnade in the outer court

An example of the fine carving on some of the reliefs, where some sense of depth is portrayed. I do not recall seeing this detail elsewhere.

Hieroglyphics and murals in the temple

Tut and Tut in front of the Kiosk of Trajan

The quarry at Aswan

The unfinished obelisk

Mummy with the unfinished obelisk in the background