Philae Temple and Kom Ombo

A couple more temples today.

We started out the morning at the Philae Temple. Like Abu Simbel yesterday, this temple was taken apart, numbered, moved, and reassembled to keep it from being flooded by the Aswan High Dam waters. It had already been largely underwater after the Aswan Low Dam was completed in 1902. They had to surround the site with a dam and pump the area dry before they disassembled the temple to move it.

Philae Temple

The Philae Temple was originally on an island near the first cataract of the Nile and was moved to higher ground on Agikila Island. The temple was built by the Ptolemaiic kings from 282-145 BC. Philae is dedicated to Isis but Osiris and Horus were also worshipped there. While it is an Egyptian temple it also has Greek and Roman influences. This temple wasn’t all about seriousness and worship, there were big celebratory events here.

Colonade

blessing marks where people have touched columns over centuries

Greek graffiti

View of the Aswan High Dam

We then had a chance to visit a Nubian home. The Nubian people are a people grow from what is now norther Sudan and southern Egypt. They speak their Nubian and a few sub-languages. Much of their native lands were flooded by the Aswan High Dam. They were forcibly relocated, but many of them have stayed in the general nearby area.

typical Nubian houses

In the afternoon we visited the Temple of Kom Ombo. This is a double temple that was also constructed during the Ptolemaic period from 180-47 BC. Much of the temple has been destroyed by earthquakes, the Nile, and from parts being used in later structures.

Half of the temple is dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world, and the other half to Horus, the falcon-headed god of the sky and health. There was a sanitarium at this temple where people could get medical care, situated on Horus’ side of the temple. Sobek’s chief sanctuary was at Kom Ombo, where there were once large numbers of crocodiles. It was believed that worshipping them would protect people from crocodile attacks. Hundreds of crocodile mummies were found around here.