Philae Gumbo?

The Temple of Philae is located on an island in a lake, making it a lovely destination accessible only by boat ride.

Walking from our tour bus to our canopied flat-boat for the ride to Philae Temple's island, we were greeted by pencil-thin, ebony-skinned merchants with their wares neatly displayed on blankets stretched out before them.  Trinkets, African hats, carvings and other goods that seemed to be handmade dominated, alongside touristy knickknacks likely made in China.

Fawzy invited one of the handmade-jewelry vendors aboard our boat to sell his $2 and $3 bead bracelets, and he had several takers for these pretty, inexpensive souvenirs.

Had I not known better, I could easily have believed we were deep in Ethiopia or Sudan.  In fact, this part of Egypt was once the African nation of Kush, the home of the Nubians.

When the Aswan dam projects of the 20th Century were built, much of this area was flooded, forcing relocation of many Nubians to Cairo and other areas, but some remain.  

Some moved to the south to Sudan.

A major dam project for me brought to mind the great George Clooney movie, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, where the good of the many necessarily took away homes of some.  It is a story of imminent domain that replays many ways, always painful for those who lose what they love or is at least familiar.

The ancient nation of Kush gave birth to the "Black Pharaohs," who rose to rule all of Egypt during the 25th Dynasty, an era that spanned about 100 years. 

Kush had traded with Egypt for centuries and so was quite familiar with their culture.

With no gold in Egypt, all of that precious metal found inlaid in King Tut's coffin and shaped into Pharaohs' jewelry likely came from the Kush nation, which traded gold for grain.  Fawzy pointed out faded hieroglyphics we saw at the Temple of Hatshepsut of what looked like stacks of hay being exchanged with foreigners.

Egypt was the breadbasket for much of their known world for several millennia.  Along with plunder from war, agriculture was one of their primary sources of wealth. 

The Kingdom of Kush had great warriors known for their prowess with bows and arrows, so Egypt hired some to be mercenaries and police.  In addition to being great archers, they became a country of intellectuals, cherishing the wisdom of the ages they came across, including in Egypt.

These brave, noble Nubians followed their king and great general Piye north to conquer and subsequently unify Egypt.  They were not mere plunderers.  The vision was to restore Egypt to its greatness after centuries of foreign rule and what had become a fragmented country of warring kingdoms.  

Piye honored the traditions that had made Egypt's Pharaohs great, which began with conquering enemies and playing their parts in religious ceremonies

For his own burial, Piye harkened back to the Old Kingdom, beginning a new tradition of Nubian Pyramids built as essentially huge tombstones.  Nubian Pyramids were shorter (about 100 feet tall) and with steeper sides than the Pyramids of the Old Kingdom.  Rather than housing a tomb inside, they were solid.

The modifications were probably necessary due to the softer local stones of this Kush region where the Nubian Pyramids were built.

On their way north during the campaign to conquer Egypt, Piye and his army stopped at ancient Thebes to celebrate the Festival of Opet at Luxor, earning them credibility with Egyptians. After conquering Egypt, Piye returned home to rule from the Kush region.  He later sent his sister to be a priestess of sorts, a position from which she could oversee his rule and make sure he received his taxes.

Rather than killing the petty kings, Piye made them his vassals to rule their own regions as long as they paid him tribute.

The arc-roofed and domed buildings on the shores of this great lake created by the Aswan Dam project look like futuristic housing on a Star Wars planet far, far away, where rebels would hold out against the evil Empire.  It is a unique architectural style in Egypt, though I would guess that up close they are more rudimentary than cutting-edge.

Kush encompassed much of southern Egypt and modern-day Sudan.  The DNA would be closer to Sudanese, but Nubians have their own language.

To me, Kush in many ways seems like the idealized notion of a lost African civilization found in several  movies.  Of course, I have only been to Africa this one time, and perhaps when I go to other regions I will feel that way about another place.

In any case, Will Smith had high hopes for a movie starring himself as one of the Black Pharaohs, Taharqa.  He sought out the writer of Braveheart to do the screenplay, but apparently The Last Pharaoh died in production hell.  

No actor was hotter in Hollywood than Will Smith in 2008, so it might have been a hit comparable to the Elizabeth Taylor classic movie version of Cleopatra.  I would still like to see Will produce that movie, even if he is now too old to play the starring role.

The primary emphasis on our tour was about the Temple of Philae being rescued by UNESCO before the Aswan High Dam project flooded these Nubian lands, which is pretty remarkable.

When the original Aswan Low Dam was completed in 1902, the island where the Temple of Philae stood was left flooded most of the year.  Tourists visited in rowboats for years, actually floating through the ruins rather than walking through them after a boat ride like we did.

The High Dam was announced in 1954, and it seemed inevitable that Philae would be fully submerged, vanishing forever, though perhaps it would have become a popular scuba-diving spot.

Beginning in 1960, UNESCO's International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia began huge projects including relocation of the entire Temple of Philae to a higher island a few hundred yards away.  They also moved and rebuilt Abu Simbel, which we would visit later that day.

Philae Temple was dedicated to the goddess Isis.  As you may recall, Isis was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.

In a typically Egyptian manner, honoring motherhood is symbolized by cow's ears on the goddess Hathor, who is sometimes described as the "female counterpart" of the sun god Ra, possibly both his daughter and wife.

Her visage appeared regularly in temples we visited, symbolized with cow's ears, including at the top of several columns at Philae, because this was a Temple celebrating Isis, the mother of Horus.

By way of differentiation from the Temples in Edfu and Kom Ombo, the Temple of Philae included embellishments made well into the post-Pharaoh Roman Era.

While it fell from its peak widespread popularity in the Roman Era, it remained an important place of worship for the Nubians into the fifth century AD, a bit beyond when pagan worship was banned.  Philae was repurposed to be a Christian church.

We originally were supposed to visit Philae Temple on the last full day of our cruisetour of Egypt, but a change in Egypt Air's schedule pushed our visit to Philae a day earlier, which had formerly been a free day for which we had booked an optional full-day tour to Abu Simbel.

After touring the Temple of Philae, we split into two groups, with our contingent continuing on to Abu Simbel, another "must-see" which was not included in the standard itinerary by our discount tour operator.

Our tour group was actually one of three with similar itineraries but different guides operated by the same tour company.  The other two left at 5 AM to beat the crowds.  Fawzy held us back to 7 AM, and in this case that resulted in not only more sleep for us but a less crowded visit to Philae Temple.

Some in our group who had paid in advance to go to Abu Simbel bailed without refund at the prospect of an even longer tour beyond what we had already done that day.  We actually rode in a bus for hours, even stopping for lunch, so we had plenty of time to rest, and we're happy we carried on...conditional on our bus having an excellent air conditioner.

As the old America song goes, "The heat was hot and the ground was dry."

Our lunch was not Philae Gumbo, but I will get to what it was in the next post.