Abu Simbel and Aswan

Aswan and Elephants island:

The city was known for its market and trade and it is a highlight to visit a local souq in Aswan. Another very popular activity is to rent a felucca boat to sail on the Nile. Costs are about 15 EP per hour. 

Elephantine is a small island in the Nile close to Aswan that was used in ancient times as a defense and trading place. Because there was a lot of elephant ivory traded the island was named after this. According to Egyptian mythology, Elephantine was the place where Chnoem, the god of the Cataracts with the head of a ram, stayed.

The southern part of the island is occupied by the ruins of Yebu. Besides the archaeological sites, the island is now used by the Aswan Museum in the south, the local population in three villages in the middle of the island and a large luxurious hotel on the other. The Nubian villages Siou and Koti are also worth a visit. There is an old Nilometer to measure the height of a flood. You can go to the island with a felucca but you can also take the public ferry (0.25 EL). 

Other attractions:

• On the Western Nile in Aswan you can see the rock graves of the Old Kingdom. But also the Mausoleum of Aga Khan III (48th Imam) and the Monastery of St. Simeon that was destroyed by Saladin.

The Aswan Dam and Philae

The construction of the new (Aswan) dam started in 1960 and was completed 10 years later. The Nasser lake formed by the dam was completely filled for the first time in 1976.

The reservoir obliged thousands of people to move, and also archaeological sites (such as Abu Simbel and Philae) had to be moved. Due to UNESCO this big tourist sites were rescued from destruction, disassembled and moved and now placed on the world heritage list. 

Philae is an island not far from the dam with an ancient Egyptian temple complex dedicated to the fertility goddess Isis. In Roman times it became the most important Egyptian goddess and Emperor Justinian decided to close the complex in the year 550. The oldest monuments date from the 7th century BC. when Pharaoh Taharqa built an altar. But they were then already built on age-old structures. Most dates back to the Ptolemaic and Roman period. The temple for Isis consisted of three parts: a large court, the front colonnade and three chapels in the back.

There is also a reconstructed temple of Augustus and a triumphal arch and a Coptic church. At the Gate of Hadrian, on August 24, 394, the very last inscription was made in hieroglyphs, and also the last Coptic inscription (452 AD).

Abu Simbel

The archaeological complex, consisting of two enormous stone Egyptian temples, lies about 280 kilometers south of Aswan, not far from the Sudanese border. The two temples were cut from a mountain by Ramesses II in the 13th century BC. to impress his Cushish neighbors and to honor himself and his queen Nefertari. In the mountain temple there were eight pillars cut in the large colonnade in the shape of Ramses II, each nearly 10 meters high.

In addition to the statues in the interior of the temple, Ramses had four colossal images of himself made for the façade. Between the legs of these images placed on both sides of the main entrance is a number of smaller statues representing the mother of Ramesses, his wife Queen Nefertari and several of the 100 children of the Pharaoh. The temple was built so that the sunlight fell on three of the four statues standing in the sanctuary two days a year, except for Ptah (the god of darkness) and he always stood in darkness. Two of the images represent Ramses and the Egyptian supreme god Amon.

The other temple is the Hathor temple, carved from the rocks. There are six large statues of 10 meters high in front of the temple.