Philae Temple

The Temple of Philae. The temple of Philae is perhaps one of the most picturesque temples on the Nile. Prior to the building of the dam it was situated on another small island but because of the building of the lower Nile dam it covered it under the waters of Lake Nasser completely submerging it. The paint was stripped off the temples by the rising and falling of the water levels. It was therefore dismantled into 40,000 blocks piece by piece weighing and estimated 20,000 tons, catalogued and moved to its present site on the Island of Angilika. It took 8 years to move it and reassemble it and was funded by UNESCO. You can see pictures of it on the ...  Read the complete review

I visited Philae Temple as part of a Nile Cruise last year. My holiday in Egypt was largely disappointing, but Philae remains as one of the most positive memories. After leaving Aswan, the temples are only accessible to tourists by boats, as it is on an island by the Aswan dam. From the little port, the boats take roughly 10 minutes to reach little Philae island, which almost appears out of nowhere in the calm midst of the Nile. Remains date back to 380BC and according to our guide legend has it it is the burial place of Osiris, despite being dedicated to the goddess Isis. I won't go too into the history, partly because if you do visit then I'd have given away ...  Read the complete review