You’ll commonly visit Aswan Dam as a part of your cruise. The dam turned into constructed between 1960 and 1970 to offer water for irrigation, generate hydroelectricity and manipulate flooding. It additionally meant the lack of entire Nubian villages as they have become submerged within the waters of Lake Nasser, a by-product of the dam’s construction.
You can study Aswan’s Nubian population at the metropolis’s Nubian Museum. This became an sudden highlight for me — reveals show diverse relics and paintings from Nubia and let you know approximately the Nubian way of life in southern Egypt. You also can see vintage images of a number of the villages that now lie at the lowest of the lake. Over on Elephantine Island inside the middle of the Nile, relocated Nubians have constructed traditional dust-brick houses.
It’s believed Philae changed into the remaining temple dedicated to the Ancient Egyptian faith, with the last Egyptian hieroglyph written there in the 4th century. Built in the course of the Ptolemaic dynasty and devoted to the goddess Isis, it marked the southern boundary of Egypt.
The temple firstly stood on Philae Island in the Nile, but for the reason that first Aswan Dam become built within the early 20th century it had suffered from flooding. Nile luxury cruises With the second dam on the horizon, UNESCO and the Egyptian authorities determined that the temple must be moved, piece via piece, to another island, Agilka, just a little south of Aswan.
The tremendous feat took ten years to finish however, travelling the temple, I’m so glad they did it. Arriving at Philae through boat, you’re greeted via considered one of Egypt’s maximum appealing temples. Its island place offers it a exceptional ecosystem to the other temples, and understanding that it once stood some other place makes it all of the greater putting.
A colonnaded courtyard ends in the principle temple building — the doorway is marked by 18 m (59 feet) excessive pylons (enormous gateways). There’s also the Kiosk of Trajan, a small, unfinished pavilion with intricately carved columns set by means of the water.