Christmas With Isis

Before Christianity came along with Mary & her babe of hope, the Great Mother in this part of the world, was Isis. It seemed fitting that we visit her temple on the island of Philae today. Before arriving there, however, we were introduced as to why & how it came to be in it's present location on the island of Philae. In order to control the seasonal flooding from the Nile, the British built the 'old' dam, back in the 1880's, as well as expanding the network of irrigation chanels that criss cross this country. In the 1960's the 'High Dam' was built, reinforcing that control & establishing hydro electric power plants to supply electricity to the area around Aswan. For this to work, a huge area of land needed to be claimed for the construction of the dam...consequently 42 Nubian communities needed to be relocated to higher ground. As was ancient significant monuments. The Temple of Isis being recognised as the 'pearl of Egypt', was one. The sight chosen for her relocation was the small island of Philae, which we needed to reach by boat. Up until now, every vehicle we have travelled in has looked road/water-worthy. Today we stepped into a rickity & rusted bucket of a boat & set out with the engine sputtering & me looking out for crocs! Lake Nasser (as the dam lake is called) is the only remaining place in the Egyptian leg of the Nile, where crocs can be found. I was very eager to get on dry land again! We are becoming quite familiar with temple layout now & recognised the courtyards, pylons & structure of building leading to the Holy of Holies. It would have been a very pretty temple in its day, having been built over a period of 150 years, prior to 50BC. It was a place where the holy trinity of that time, Isis, Osiris & their son Horus, were worshipped. Sadly a lot of the beauty had been vandalised by the Christians years later, but there was still a seldom seen portrait of the three, showing Horus as a boy, identifiable by the lock of hair on the side of his face! Our fabulous guide, fatima, introduced us to other fascinating attributes to this site,... remains of a coptic alter & niche, when the main hipostyle hall was turned into a Coptic church dedicated to St Stephen...a text engraved by Napoleon, from the brief period when Egypt was under his grip...gouges in pillars left by pilgrims who came to Isis for healing, & believed that by making their fingers bleed on the temple she would hear their prayer...and a fabulous relief of the Nile god Hapy, hiding in a cave under a mountain. He was protected by a huge snake. And from his hands he holds two urns from which water flows. These were believed to represent the two sources of the Nile, one going south into Africa & the other going North to the mediterranean. Priests told their followers that the cave where he hid was in a nearby island, thereby making the people believe that the Nile stemmed from them, therefore they were responsible for its flow & to ensure that....more sacrifices were needed to appease Hapy, with the clever Priests getting a very nice little slice of the goods!!