What about Aswan ? oooh !!

About Aswan :
In Aswan the Nile is at its most beautiful, flowing through amber desert and granite rocks, round emerald islands covered in palm groves and tropical plants. Explore the souk, full of the scent and color of spices, perfumes, scarves and baskets. View the spectacular sunsets while having tea on the terrace of the Old Cataract Hotel (Named due to the location of the Nile's first cataract located here). Aswan has been a favorite winter resort since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it's still a perfect place to get away from it all.

Every night Nubian dancers and musicians perform in the Cultural Center, just off the Corniche. Folklore troupes recreate scenes from village life and perform the famous Nubian mock stick-fight dances.
Aswan is a strategic location which currently houses a garrison of the Egyptian army, but which has also seen ancient Egyptian garrisons, as well as that of General Kitchener, Turkish troops of the Ottoman Empire and the Romans.

The city proper lies on the east bank of the Nile.  Relax here, visit a few mosques, but then prepare for an adventure.  The bazaar runs along the Corniche, which continues past the Ferial Gardens and the Nubian Museum, and continues on to the Cemetery, with its forest of cupolas surmounted tombs from the Fatimid period.  Just east of the cemetery in the famous area quarries is the gigantic Unfinished Obelisk.  Just to the south of this, two Graeco-Roman sarcophagi and an unfinished colossus remain half buried in the sand.

The most obvious is Elephantine Island, which is timeless with artifacts dating from pre-Dynastic times onward.  It is the largest island in the area. Just beyond Elephantine is Kitchener's Island (Geziret el-Nabatat).  It was named for the British general Haratio Kitchener (185--1916) and was sent to Egypt in 1883 to reorganize the Egyptian army, which he then led against the Sudanese Mahdi.  But the island is known for its garden and the exotic plants the Kitchener planted there, and which continue to flourish today.

On the opposite shore (west bank), the cliffs are surmounted by the tomb of a marabut, Qubbet el-Hawwa, who was a local saint.  Below are tombs of the local (Pharaonic) nobles and dignitaries.

Upriver a bit is the tomb of Mohammed Shah Aga Khan who died in 1957.  Known as the Tomb of the Aga Khan, it is beautiful in its simplicity.  A road from there leads back to the Coptic Monastery of St Simeon, which was built in the sixth century in honor of Amba Hadra, a local saint.

Just up river a bit, there is also the old Aswan dam, built by the British, which was enlarged, expanded, but unable to control the Nile for irrigation.

The temples of Abu Simple
The Great Temple:
The rock-cut temple of Ramesses II on the west bank of the Nile at Abu Simbel is the greatest of the seven rock-cut temples which the king constructed in Nubia and the most impressive of all the Egyptian monuments in the area. The temple was not seen by Europeans until the 19th century, when it was discovered by J.-L. Burckhardt in 1813 and penetrated by Giovanni Belzoni in 1817. Today, as a result of the international effort which moved the huge, cliff-cut temple and the Small Temple to higher ground during the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, the monument is one of the most famous in Egypt.

The temple was evidently begun fairly early in Ramesses' long reign - it was commissioned sometime after the king's fifth regnal year but was not completed until his 35th year. During this time the conception of the monument's purpose may have changed to some degree, and the cult images in the temple's innermost shrine were recarved to include a representation of Ramesses himself, along with the three great state gods of late New Kingdom Egypt, Re-Horakhty of Heliopolis, Ptah of Memphis, and Amun-Re of Thebes. At its completion, the temple was called simply Hut Ramesses Meryamun, The temple of Ramesses, Beloved of Amun'.
The forecourt which fronted the temple contained two tanks for the ablutions of the priests, which flanked the stairs leading up to the entrance terrace. On the northern side of this terrace stood a small sun-chapel and on the south a chapel of Thoth. The massive façade of the main temple is dominated, of course, by the four seated colossi of Ramesses which, at some 21 m (69 ft), are among the tallest made in Egypt. Beneath these giant sculptures are the carved figures of bound Negro (on the south) and Asiatic (on the north) captives - symbolic of Egypt's borderland enemies. Next to the giant figures of the king, members of Ramesses' family - including images of his great royal wife Nefertari and mother Muttuya, as well as several children - stand at his feet. The figure of Re (worshipped by flanking images of Ramesses) above the entrance not only spells out the king's throne name in rebus form, User-Maat-Re, but also stresses the solar nature of the outer temple. A stela at the southern end of the external terrace records one of Ramesses' diplomatic triumphs, his marriage to a daughter of the Hittite king Hattusilis III.
Within the temple a series of chambers becomes increasingly smaller as the floors of the rooms rise noticeably - following the basic convention of temple design in a somewhat foreshortened manner. The first hall is nevertheless cut on an imposing scale and contains eight large Osiride statues of the king engaged to the pillars which support its roof. The walls are decorated in relief with scenes showing the king in battle (including the great Battle of Kadesh, on the north wall, and Syrian, Libyan and Nubian wars on the south wall), and presenting prisoners to the gods. The wall carvings retain some of their original colour. A series of magazines radiates off from this first hall; behind it the smaller, second pillared hall with ritual offering scenes stands before a transverse vestibule and the sanctuary which is flanked by special storerooms for cultic objects. The sanctuaries contain a small altar and, in its rear niche (le to right) are the four statues of Ptah, Amun-Re, the deified Ramesses and Re-Horakhty. While the horizontal rays of the rising sun did illuminate the statues twice each year (and still do through the careful orientation of the relocated temple), the specific dates of these occurrences are not as important as is often thought, as the phenomenon would occur with any south-facing structure of this type at some point or points of the year. Nevertheless, the occurrence itself was important as it achieved the symbolic fusion of solar and chthonic forces celebrated in this great temple.

The Small Temple:
To the north of the main temple a smaller, yet still impressive, temple was built in honour of Ramesses' great wife, Nefertari, and the goddess Hathor, the deity most closely associated with queenship in ancient Egypt. As with Ramesses' own temple, the cliff face was cut back to resemble the sloping walls of a pylon and colossal standing figures (about 10 m or 33 ft high) of Ramesses and Nefertari - four of the king and two of the queen -were cut, along with diminutive figures of the royal family. Inside, Nefertari's temple is both smaller and simpler in plan, with a single pillared hall - here with carved Hathor images on the sides facing the centre of the hypostyle; a vestibule with ancillary rooms at either end; and the sanctuary. Although the sanctuary itself was completed, two spaces were left on its side walls for doors to rooms which were never cut. The inner chamber contains a number of images interrelating the royal couple and the gods. On the rear wall, in high relief, Hathor is depicted as a cow emerging from the 'western mountain’ with the king standing beneath her chin. On the-left wall Nefertari is seen worshipping before Mut and Hathor, and on the right Ramesses before images of his deified self and his wife. The importance granted to Nefertari here and throughout the temple is immense, and the queen is repeatedly shown as participating in the divine rituals on an equal footing with the king.

Aswan High Dam
An extensive artificial reservoir was created in Lower Nubia, when the first Aswan dam was constructed (and heightened in three phases) between 1902 and 1933, necessitating a campaign to survey Nubian sites before they were submerged. When work began on the new Aswan High Dam in 1960, the creation of Lake Nasser, one of the largest reservoirs in the world, was initiated. A UNESCO-coordinated operation was therefore launched, not only to record the Nubian monuments threatened by this much more extensive flooding but also to dismantle and move certain monuments (including PHILAE, ABU SIMBEL and KALABSHA) to higher ground before the completion of the dam in 1971.
The High Dam was an engineering miracle; it contains 18 times the material used in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The Dam is 11,811 feet long, 3215 feet thick at the base and 364 feet tall. Today it provides irrigation and electricity for the whole of Egypt and, together with the old Aswan Dam, are wonderful views for visitors. From the top of the two Mile long High Dam you can gaze across Lake Nasser.
The High Dam created a 30% increase in the cultivatable land in Egypt, and raised the water table for the Sahara as far away as Algeria. The electricity producing capability of the Dam doubled Egypt's available supply.
The High Dam added a whole new aspect to Egypt and a new environment as well. The lake is some 500 miles long and at the time it was built, if not now, was the world's largest artificial lake.

Edfu Temple
The site of ancient Djeba (Coptic Etbo, Arabic Edfu) was the traditional location of the mythological battle between the gods Horus and Seth; and its sandstone Ptolemaic temple, dedicated to Horus, is the most complete and best preserved of all the temples of Egypt. Built on the site of a New Kingdom temple which was oriented east to west, the Ptolemaic structure follows instead a north axis and thus left the remains of the old (and apparently much smaller) temple's entrance pylon standing at a 90-degree angle to its own entrance. Due to an unusually high number of building inscriptions preserved here, we know many of the details of the newer temple's history. It was evidently begun by Ptolemy III in 237 BC and completed 180 years later in 57 BC. The inner part of the structure, with its decoration, was finished in 207 BC, though political unrest in Upper Egypt (especially in the time of Ptolemies IV and V) meant that the dedication of the temple did not occur until 142 BC and some final work was not accomplishes till 140 BC. In the following decades the hypostyle hall was built (completed in 122 BC); and the outermost elements - the peristyle court and entrance pylons - were then added and finally completed ir 57 BC, in the reign of Ptolemy XII Auletes, the father of the last Cleopatra.
Unusually, the twin towers of the great entrance pylon of the temple were planned as perfect mirror images of each other, both in their construction and in the rather curiously rendered scenes carved or their surfaces. Two statues of Horus as a falcon flank the entrance gate, and behind the pylon, at the base of the walls on either side of the entrance, are: scenes depicting the ‘Feast of the Beautiful Meeting’ in which Horus of Edfu was united with Hathor of Dendera. The peristyle court is now paved in the manner of its original surface and the columns of the surrounding colonnade are carefully arranged with paired capitals of varied forms.
Gates at the court's inner corners lead to the long passage-like ambulatory - really a narrow inner court - which lies between the inner temple and its surrounding enclosure wall. The walls are here decorated with scenes and inscriptions of various types including a mythical foundation text and, of particular interest, the text of the 'dramatic' ritual in which Horus defeats his enemy Seth.
Before the façade of the hypostyle hall stands the famous statue of Horus as a giant falcon wearing the double crown of Egypt, a statue embodying the majesty of the ancient god as well as his fusion with the institution of kingship. The façade itself, with its intercolumnar screen wall and engaged columns, is not unlike that of Dendera, and the interior parts of the temple show a progressively increasing similarity with that temple. The first hypostyle hall has two small engaged chambers on its south wall, one a library and the other a robing room similar to that at Esna. The hall contains 12 impressive columns and although the ceiling they support has no decoration, the side walls have traditional scenes including several showing the foundation ceremony of the temple. The second, smaller hypostyle which lies beyond also has 12 columns, though oriented in room deeper than it is wide. The eastern side has an exit leading out to the temple’s well and a chamber for storing liquid offerings, while a door on the western side accessed a chamber for solid offerings. Another door led to the 'laboratory' where incense was prepared.
Beyond the two hypostyles is a transverse offering hall and vestibule and the sanctuary itself, which still contains a granite naos-type shrine of Nectanebo II - the oldest element in the temple and one clearly saved from an earlier temple on the site to provide continuity to the newer structure. The main sanctuary is surrounded by a number of chapels including those of Min, Osiris, Khonsu, and Hathor and Re, as well as a 'chamber of linen' and a 'chamber of the throne of the gods'. The chapel at the very rear of the sanctuary contains a modern reproduction of the god's barque which gives a good idea of its size and general appearance, if not of its precious materials. To the east of the sanctuary entrance a door opens to the small court which led in turn to the stairway used to reach the temple roof in the New Year's festival which was celebrated here in a manner similar to that of the ritual of Dendera. As there, the figures of priests and standard bearers line the stairwell walls, but only that on the west side of the temple (originally the descending stair) can now be accessed. The roof of this temple lacks many of the features still found at Dendera, though some of these may have originally existed here also. Instead of cult chapels the only remaining structures are magazines, several with hidden chambers within or beside them.
To the south of the temple of Horus, just outside the portal of the processional way, is the mammisi. Like the Roman period mammisi of Dendera -which was modeled after this building - this birth house was built at right angles to the main temple, and the two structures follow the same general plan. Here, however, more of the forward part of the structure is preserved. A little more of the colonnade, for example, is intact, its intercolumnar screens decorated with the rather curious mixture of Pharaonic and classical motifs sometimes found in these late structures. The birth room itself was surrounded by an ambulatory of columns linked by low walls - strangely, cut down in antiquity to about half their height - but which preserve in places their original colouring, especially on the south side of the building. Many of the motifs found here are the same as those decorating the mammisi of Dendera: the figures of the dwarf-god Bes on the abaci of the columns; and on the lintels, the representation of the infant Harsomptus (offspring of Horus and Hathor) worshipped by pairs of deities. The birth room contains various offering and ritual scenes of the king (Ptolemy VIII) and the gods, and in the upper registers of the north and south walls birth scenes and scenes of Harsomptus being nursed by various goddesses. At the centre of the south wall the god Thoth establishes the reign of the king who is followed by his mother, wife and son in the kind of legitimizing scene often associated with birth rooms. Elsewhere the 'Feast of the Beautiful Meeting' in which Horus and Hathor were united is subtly evoked in scenes of the barques of the two deities.

Esna Temple
Esna is built in the area of ancient Latopolis and is the first site of a major surviving temple south (55 Ion 34 miles) of Luxor. Its Egyptian name was Iunyt or Ta-senet (from which the Coptic Sne and Arabic Isna). The temple, which now stands in the middle of the modern town, some 9 m (29 ft 6 in) below the level of the surrounding buildings, dates to Ptolemaic and Roman times and is one of the latest constructed in Egypt. It was dedicated to Chnum and several other deities, the most prominent being Neith and Heka (whose name means 'magic'). Only the hypostyle hall has survived, but this is well preserved. The back wall is the oldest part of the building, being the facade of the old Ptolemaic temple, with reliefs of Ptolemy VI and VIII. To this the Romans added the present structure which has decoration dating all the way to the 3rd century AD. The roof of the hall is supported by tall columns with composite floral capitals of varied design, and the facade of this hypostyle is in the form of an intercolumnar screen wall similar to those of the temples of Dendera and Edfu, which this structure probably resembled in its original complete state.
The decoration and inscriptions of Esna temple are often well executed, and some are of particular interest. The scene depicting the king netting wildfowl (representing inimical spirits) on the north wall continues ancient Egyptian themes, but other representations - such as that on a column at the rear of the hall to the right showing the king offering a laurel wreath to the gods - are of decidedly late character. Some of this temple's texts are also of interest - including a full coverage of the sacred calendar and a pair of cryptographic hymns to Khnum, one written almost entirely with hieroglyphs of rams and the other written with crocodiles. These are inside the front corners of the hall, next to the small doors which were used by the priests to enter and exit the temple. The whole structure is extremely regular in design, its symmetry being broken only by a small engaged chamber - perhaps a robbing room for the priests - on the southern side of the entrance, a feature also found at Edfu. The temple was originally linked by a ceremonial way to the Nile, where its ancient quay (with cartouches of Marcus Aurelius) may still be seen.

Kom Ombo Temple
Situated between Aswan and Edfu, Kom Ombo is the ancient city of Pa-Sebek, 'the Domain of Sobek', the crocodile god worshipped since Predynastic times, and part of the Upper Egyptian region which was the realm of the old falcon-god Horus. A temple seems to have been built here in the New Kingdom, perhaps on the site of an even earlier structure, but the area did not rise to prominence until Ptolemaic times - to which period almost all the surviving monuments date. The temple, which is dedicated equally to Sobek and to Haroeris (Harwer) or 'Horus the Elder' and their associated deities, stands on a plateau cut by two long dry streams which isolate the site and provide the most spectacular setting of any of Egypt's river temples. Part of the temple's forecourt has, in fact, been eroded by the river, but modern control of the water has checked the threat of further damage and much of the temple remains.
The temple is oriented east to west according to the 'local north' determined by the river, and today the temple is entered through the remains of the Ptolemaic portal at the southwest of the precinct. The surviving part of the temple is flanked on the left by the scant remains of a birth house (situated, as elsewhere, at right angles to the main temple) and at the right by the remains of a gate of Ptolemy XII 'Auletes' the 'flute player'.
On the eastern side of the temple there is a small independent chapel of Hathor, and on the west the remains of a particularly deep well and a small pond where crocodiles, sacred to Sobek, are believed to have been raised. A number of the mummified creatures are stored, along with their clay coffins, in the Hathor chapel.

The temple itself was begun by Ptolemy VI - at least he is the earliest ruler named in it - but most of the decoration was not completed until the time of Ptolemy XII Auletes, and the outermost areas were not built until Roman times. The structure was made of the local sandstone by troops stationed here (Kom Ombo was a training ground for African elephants used by the army); and although the layout of the temple is similar to that of Dendera or Edfu, its somewhat smaller design often displays a pleasing architectural elegance based on the careful planning of its architects. The whole temple reflects its dual ownership, and even the Roman forecourt was 'divided' into equal shares for Sobek (east side) and Haroeris. An altar base is situated in the court's centre with small basins - to receive libations -sunk into the ground at each side for the respective gods. The relief carvings on some of the surviving columns of the colonnade are well preserved and many maintain their original colouring.
The facade of the hypostyle, with its intercolumnar nar screen walls and small side doors for use by the priests, is typical of its period, though the capitals of the columns within are often wrought with ingenious compound forms. As would be expected, the decoration of the hall and remaining parts of the temple is divided between the two gods, with scenes of Sobek on the east and Haroeris on the west. A second hypostyle repeats the design on a smaller scale and again allows two separate processional paths towards the inner sanctuaries behind three narrow transverse halls or vestibules.
The twin sanctuaries, like much of the temple's interior, are broken down but still contain the pedestals which supported the sacred barques of the two gods. The reduced condition of the chambers reveals the secret chamber beneath them which was used by priests to overhear petitions or deliver oracles on behalf of the deities. In fact, much of the inner part of the temple is honeycombed with crypts and hidden passages, and many of these can be explored by visitors to the temple. As at Dendera and Edfu, the sanctuary rooms are surrounded by smaller cult chapels, but unlike the other two sites, a small, internal hallway runs around the perimeter of the inner temple, between it and the outer wall of the building. The back wall of this area has six small rooms - three on either side of a stairway leading to the roof - with varying degrees of decoration. The outer ambulatory which encircles this area, as at Edfu, is rated with Roman period scenes of varying but contains, towards the left end of the rear wall famous and controversial scene in which the king presents a group of ritual and/or surgical instruments. Some of these implements were certainly used in the practice of the cult, but others may be medically related; and it is known that pilgrims came to Haroeris, the Healer, to be treated for their infirmities. They apparently waited on the god in the temple's hallways where game boards were scratched into the stones of the floors.
Most striking of the features of the rear part of the temple, however, is the false door at the centre of the back wall of the sanctuary area, which is here modified and expanded in form to include a central niche flanked by hearing ears and seeing eyes and the figures of the two gods: Sobek, on the left, with a lion-headed scepter or baton, and Haroeris, on the right, with a strange human-legged knife. Between the two gods a double hymn extols them; and above the niche, along with the figure of Maat who holds up the sky, the figures of the four winds are represented by a lion, a falcon, a bull and a many-headed serpent - oddly echoing the later Christian use of the ancient images of lion, eagle, bull and man as symbols of the four Gospel writers. The outer surfaces of the temple-encircling walls are decorated with colossal relief figures, predictably divided in the subjects of their representations between the realms of the two gods.

Mausoleum of Aga Khan III
The mausoleum of the Aga Khan, forty-eighth Imam (or leader) of the Ismaili sect of Islam, is another landmark of Aswan. It is not an historical monument, but it has gained considerable popular cultural appeal.
The late Aga Khan (who claimed direct descent from Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad), used to visit Aswan every winter and take up residence in his white villa, Nur al-Salaam, situated just above the west bank. He reputedly buried himself in the hot desert sands as a palliative for his rheuma-tism. He was so enchanted with the beauty of Aswan that toward the end of his life he expressed the desire to be buried in a spot overlooking his favorite part of the river. He died in 1957. His wife the Begum oversaw the construction of his mausoleum. It was built in the Fatimid style with a single dome, one of the important innovations in Islamic architecture between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Constructed of fine rose granite, its inner walls are of marble and inscribed with verses of the Quran. A small mosque has been incorporated into the structure. The sarcophagus is carved from Carrara marble from Italy. Each day a fresh rose is placed on the Aga Khan's tomb. When the Begum is in residence in the villa, below the mausoleum, she carries the flower to her husband's tomb herself.

Nubia Museum
The Nubian Museum lies southeast of the Cataract Hotel on a rocky slope overlooking part of the ancient quarries. The need to build a special museum to house the antiquities of Nubia was realized years before the completion of the High Dam in 1971. Excavations by scholars around the world had yielded such an abundance of diverse objects that no existing museum could allocate the space needed to house them. The government consequently set the project in motion to build a new museum, and called upon UNESCO to contribute funds and expertise.
The museum presents the history of Nubia from prehistoric times until its inundation by Lake Nasser. The bulk of the items are from storerooms, where they have been safely protected since their discovery. These include some two thousand Pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Coptic, and Islamic objects that were salvaged from Nubia. In addition, Nubian objects on display in other museums (Elephantine Museum, the Cairo Museum of Pharaonic Antiquities, and the Islamic Museum) have been transported there.
The objects transported from Elephantine Museum include a large number of predynastic objects excavated between 1907 and 1912: pottery, slate palettes, and jewelry, as well as objects from the New Kingdom: a board game made of faience, an alabaster vase featuring a goose, and numerous scarabs, beads, and amulets.
Among the New Kingdom exhibits are some noteworthy stelae. One is made of sandstone and was erected by an official called Pia. It was found in the temple of Amenhotep III at al-Sebua and shows a man clad in a long, two-layered garment. He raises his arms in adoration to Amun-Re, who is seated in front of a table of offerings. Another stela, also of sandstone, belongs to an official named Piay. It has two registers. The upper is incised with a ram wearing a composite crown and recumbent on a pedestal. The lower register shows a kneeling man raising his arms in adoration.
Selected as a focal point of the central hall of the museum is an eight-meter-high Nubian sandstone statue of Ramses II that has been in storage for twenty-seven years. Its unusual propor¬tions indicate that it was not fashioned by court sculptors, but guided by folk tradition in Nubia. The museum compound has been planned as a cultural and civil center, with a view to preserving Nubian culture and heritage, and facilities for scholars will include halls for anthropological and ethnological studies as well as a reference library.
The architecture of the museum has been inspired both by the square or rectangular lines of ancient Egyptian architec¬ture in temples, fortresses, and domestic architecture in the region, and by Nubian architectural traditions: low buildings and diffused light. It is on two floors and there is a low mezzanine to enhance the interior. The main entrance hall is planned to enable a free flow of large numbers of visitors, especially groups from the floating hotels.

Philae Temple
The island of Philae, famous for centuries for its rich heritage of temples, now lies submerged beneath the waters of Lake Nasser to the south of Aswan. Thankfully, however, when the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s the island's temples were dismantled and then reconstructed on the higher terrain of nearby Agilkia Island, which was prepared and landscaped to look like the original Philae.
The ancient Egyptians saw in their name for Philae an etymology with the meaning 'island of the time (of Re) - i.e., creation; but the island's history is a fairly late one. The earliest evidence of religious structures goes back only to the time of Taharqa (25th dynasty), and it was not till the Graeco-Roman Period that Philae rose to importance. Philae was, however, the cult centre of Isis who was revered throughout much of the Roman world; and the site survived as a last outpost of the old pagan religion well into the present era, not being officially closed till the reign of Justinian in AD 550.
The monuments of Philae are numerous. Beginning at the ancient quay where boats now land at the southwestern corner of the island, the first structure is the kiosk of Nectanebo I, the oldest structure still standing here. To the north, the processional way leads to the main temple of Isis, The western half of the colonnade is the more complete and is pierced with windows originally looking out toward the island of Biga; a nilometer descends the cliff from here.
The eastern side of the colonnade, which was never completed, reaches only to the destroyed temple just opposite. This was the temple of the rather obscure Nubian god Arensnuphis who was venerated here as the companion of Isis. Other structures also stand behind the eastern colonnade, notably the ruined chapel of Mandulis, another Nubian deity, at the southern end and the better-preserved chapel of Imhotep (the deified chief architect of Djoser) to the north.
The entrance to the main temple is fronted by the pylon of Ptolemy XII which is decorated with the canonical scenes of the king dispatching enemies and which contains both a main (earlier) portal and a subsidiary gate in the west tower leading into the birth house of Ptolemy VI and later rulers The mammisi (birth house) is similar in plan an decoration to those of Dendera and Edfu, but her shares roughly the same axis as the main temple. Its most notable scenes are those of Isis nursing the infant Horus in the marshes, carved on the outside of the back wall, and the triumphant Horus on the inner side of the same wall. A decorated colonnade with elegantly carved columns (as is the case with most of the columns of this temple) run along the eastern side of the forecourt and fronts number of chambers including a 'library' dedicated to Thoth. A Roman chapel stands in the court northeast corner before the second pylon which was built on a natural outcrop of rock and stands at an angle to the outer entrance. The second pylon opens to the hypostyle hall of the main temple, the first part of which is left open so that it forms, in effect, combined peristyle and hypostyle.

Beyond are the chambers of the inner temple -standard, if somewhat anomalously arranged - and the sanctuary, which still contains the pedestal, dedicated by Ptolemy III and his wife Berenike, of the barque of Isis (although the granite shrines were removed to European museums in the 19th century). As in other temples of the Graeco-Roman Period, the roof holds an Osiris room and other chambers, though here they are sunk well below the level of the roof at each of its four corners. The Osiris room has its own vestibule with scenes of the gods bewailing the dead Osiris, and the inner room contains scenes relating to the collection of the god's scattered limbs.
A number of subsidiary Pharaonic structures were built to the west of the Isis temple. A gateway of the emperor Hadrian, which stands before a stairway leading down to the river, contains several interesting scenes relating to the death and ultimate apotheosis of Osiris, including one of Isis who watches while a crocodile bears the body of her husband to an area representing the mound of Biga which rose from the Nile opposite this gateway. A little to the north are the ruins of the temple of Horus the Avenger (Harendotes), and yet further north are the remains of other structures, including temple of Augustus and the quay and gateway of Diocletian.
To the east of the Isis temple stand the somewhat more substantial remains of a temple of Hathor, built by Ptolemies VI and VII, which preserves a number of scenes, including one of the kings rejoicing before the goddess, along with figures of Bes, and an ape, which plays a guitar-like instrument
Just to the south is perhaps the most famous of Philae s monuments, the kiosk of Trajan, nick-named Pharaoh's bed; While the roof of this structure - presumably of wood - has long since disappeared, it is still imposing. Fourteen columns, connected by screen walls, support the great architraves overspanning this building, which once served as the formal entrance to the island.

The Botanical Garden
This island, originally known as Kitchener's Island, was deeded to British Field Marshal and Egyptian Consul General Kitchener by the British government in gratitude for his services in Sudan, specifically for his suppression of the Mahdi revolt. Egypt was still a British protectorate when he died in 1916, and the island reverted to the government
On this fertile piece of land, northwest of Elephantine, Lord Kitchener indulged his passion for plants and turned the whole island into a botanical garden. He imported exotic flora from other parts of Africa, from India, and even from the Far East. By planting the local gum trees, acacias, doum and date palms, and tamarisks, he turned the island into a virtual paradise. The dense foliage of the trees was linked with a heavy canopy of flowering creepers. Here a variety of indigenous and migratory birds can still be seen today.
The island is preserved as a botanical research station, the gardens are well tended, and the trees and shrubs are clearly identified.
The Granite Quarries
The famous granite quarries lie in the hills to the south of Aswan, just off the main road. They were the main source of granite in Egypt, exploited from earliest times right through to the Greco-Roman Period. The Fourth Dynasty pharaohs who built the pyramids at Giza (2613-2494 B.C.) were among those who exploited the quarry. Nine great slabs of granite, weighing fifty-four tons each, were extracted to support the ceiling of the so-called King's Chamber of the Pyramid of Khufu-(Cheops). Red granite was chosen for the Valley (or Granite) Temple of Khafra (Chephren). Black granite was quarried for the lower levels of the outer casing of the Pyramid of Menkaura (Mycerinus).
The 'unfinished obelisk' still lies in the northern quarry. It represents an ancient project that failed. An unanticipated fissure was found in the stone and the obelisk was abandoned with its underside still attached to the bedrock. There is no indication of who it was intended for. Had it been completed as originally planned, however, it would have weighed some 1,168 tons and soared to a height of forty-two meters. Its importance lies in the fact that it has enabled scholars to study, and consequently understand, the various stages of quarrying that went into the production of granite obelisks and other large monuments in ancient times.
Evidence shows that workers first sank shafts to determine the nature of the rock. When a suitable expanse of stone was found, the uneven surface was removed. The next stage, the most delicate, was to free the two sides of the obelisk from the stone. Early this century it was thought that this was done by forming holes along the proposed line of separation, inserting wedges of wood into them, and then simultaneously wetting all the wedges along the line; with the expansion of the wood the block, it was thought, would detach at the line indicated. Later, the idea of wooden wedges was given up in favor of copper wedges, which it was believed were driven in by hammers. Evidence of such slots still remains in some of the surrounding rocks. Indeed, it is the method still used today in the quarries in central Sinai.
More recent evidence suggests that obelisks were literally bashed out with large balls of dolerite attached to wooden rammers. Hundreds of these, each weighing up to five and a half kilograms and measuring fifteen to thirty centimeters in diameter, were found near the unfinished obelisk, and a series of parallel, vertical, concave grooves along its sides indicate that they might have been struck vertically downward with great force.
Two wide embankments which led from the quarry to the river, recorded by early scholars as indicating the route by which the monuments were transported, are no longer visible today. We are left with an incomplete picture, and it needs a stretch of the imagination to visualize the method by which such monoliths were lifted, moved to the embankment, and placed on river barges to be transported downstream. All we have as evidence is the unfinished obelisk at Aswan and a relief in the temple of Dei r al -Bahari at Thebes of two obelisks shown end-to-end on a barge some seventy-eight meters in length, being towed by three rows of boats, nine to each row, with a tenth in the lead.

The Monastery of Saint Simeon
The monastery of Saint Simeon is situated on the western side of the Nile, south of Qubbet al-Hawa. It is one of the largest and most well preserved monastic sites in Egypt, dedicated to a local saint who became bishop of Aswan under Theophilus (389-412). Of its origins we know little, although it is believed to have been built in the seventh century. It was restored and partly rebuilt in the tenth century and then abandoned in the thirteenth. The reason may have been constant attack by roving bands of desert tribes, or perhaps the drying up of water sources.
The monastery, built on two levels, covers an area of ninety by one hundred meters. It is surrounded by a wall over six meters high, with towers facing east. This has given rise to speculation that the structure was originally a Roman fortress. The upper level is made of sun-dried brick and the lower of rough hewn stone sunk into the rock. The series of vaulted chambers occupying the spacious courtyard probably func¬tioned as storerooms. The courtyard itself was possibly a manger for livestock. Elsewhere are a milling yard, with a massive grinding stone decorated with Coptic crosses, and brick ovens. The church lies in the southeast of the enclosure. The roof was originally a series of domes supported by square pillars. The domed apse on the east has a well-preserved painting of Christ enthroned. His hand is raised in benediction; he is flanked by a quartet of angels, two on each side. The two main angels have wings, longhair, and splendid robes. Around the walls are paintings of Saint Michael, Saint George and the archangel Gabriel, and the Twelve Apostles. A cave leading off from the northwest corner of the chapel is believed to have been the dwelling of the patron saint. It has painted walls and a decorative ceiling.
At the northern end of the upper enclosure is a two-storied residence with a large cell-lined hall on the upper level. The windows, which actually overlook the northern wall, have a splendid view. Although the monastery has never been reoccupied by monks, an annual mulid is held in honor of the saint, and a guard will show visitors around.