Atherton Family Notes

One of the first things we noticed about Philae is the amount of superficial but substantial damage that had been done to much of the art work.  The appearance is quite deliberate — the damage is clearly done to deface the art but not damage the structure of the buildings.

Here is an example, from the facade of the main gate:

As it turns out, Philae has sustained this damage due the the various uses it has served over the centuries to many cultures.  The damage to the art is the work of generations of iconoclasts beginning with the Coptic Christians who have gone to great lengths to deface the temple’s portrayals of gods (and pharaohs as well, at least when they are dressed as gods).  By contrast, the images of mortals are (normally) not damaged, as you can see in the lower right corner of the picture above.

There are other cases of intentional damage as well such as places where the walls have been worn down by Greek soldiers sharpening their swords during the Ptolemaic period.

Marks made by Greeks while sharpening there swords — as well as a bit of Greek graffiti.

The damage continues inside the temple as well.  This is a literal defacement of the goddess Hathor.  All it needs now is the hole to be opened up on the other side so that tourists can stick their heads through and get their pictures taken.     I actually started to photoshop my face in there, but it was just too creepy–especially since Hathor is suckling the pharaoh.

During the Egyptian period, the temple was dedicated to Isis, and in fact remained in use for this purpose all the way up until the 6th century AD.  It was the last pagan-era temple still in use at the time.  For some time afterwards, the temple was used as a Christian church until the 7th century, when it was shut down by muslim invaders.

The altar from the 6th century church.

A Greek inscription near the altar wherein the author takes credit for destroying some of the Egyptian carvings.

There is one other type of destructive force that the temple has had to endure: once the first Aswan dam was built by the British in 1902, the temple spent about half the year at least partially submerged.  This has had the effect of removing nearly all of the color from the site.

This is how the temple looked in 1848, according to the artist David Roberts:

Even if you assume Mr. Roberts is over emphasizing the colors, it is still very impressive.

Here is how representative columns look today:

It is still posible to see hints of color here and there, but by and large, the color has washed away with the Nile.

There is an interesting story at this site about how the temple was moved, including a picture of the temple partially submerged and a choice quote from Winston Churchill about how he regarded the loss of Philae under the Nile.

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