Philae temple complex

Philae Island was an island near the expansive First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Due to the building of the Aswan Dam, the island is today submerged under Lake Nasser. Prior to the submerging, the Philae temple complex which had been built on the island, was moved to Agilkia Island.

Bigeh (Arabic: بجح; Ancient Egyptian znmwt) is an island and archaeological site situated along the Nile River in historic Nubia and within the Aswan Governorate of southern Egypt. The island has been situated in the reservoir of the Old Aswan Dam since the dam's initial completion in 1902.

Trajan's Kiosk, also known as Pharaoh's Bed (Arabic: سرير فرعون) by the locals, is a hypaethral temple currently located on Agilkia Island in southern Egypt. The unfinished monument is attributed to Trajan, Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD, due to his depiction as pharaoh seen on some of the interior reliefs. However, the majority of the structure dates to an earlier time, possibly to the reign of Augustus. The temple was originally built on the island of Philae, near the lower Aswan Dam, and served as main entrance to the Philae Island Temple Complex from the Nile river. It was relocated to Agilika Island in the 1960s as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia to save it from the rising waters of the Nile that followed the construction of the Aswan High Dam. This 15-x-20 metre kiosk is 15.85 metres high; its function was likely "to shelter the bark of Isis at the eastern banks" of Philae island. Its four by five columns each carry "different, lavishly structured composite capitals that are topped by 2.10-metre-high piers" and were originally intended to be sculpted into Bes piers, similar to the birthhouses of Philae, Armant, and Dendera though this decoration was never completed.The structure is today roofless, but sockets within the structure's architraves suggest that its roof, which was made of timber, was indeed constructed in ancient times. Three 12.50-metre-long, presumably triangulated trusses, "which were inserted into a ledge at the back of stone architecture, carried the slightly vaulted roof." All the fourteen columns are connected by a screening wall, with entrances in the eastern and western facades. This building represents an example of the unusual combination of wood and stone in the same architectural structure for an Egyptian temple. The attribution to Emperor Trajan is based on a carving inside the kiosk structure, depicting the emperor burning incense before Osiris and Isis.

Agilkia Island (also called Agilika; Arabic: أجيليكا, from Old Nubian: ⲁ̅ⲅⲗ̅, romanised: agil, "mouth") is an island in the reservoir of the Old Aswan Dam along the Nile River in southern Egypt; it is the present site of the relocated ancient Egyptian temple complex of Philae. Partially to completely flooded by the old dam's construction in 1902, the Philae complex was dismantled and relocated to Agilkia island, as part of a wider UNESCO project related to the 1960s construction of the Aswan High Dam and the eventual flooding of many sites posed by its large reservoir upstream.Agilkia, like the island, was the name chosen for the planned landing site on a comet by the Rosetta spacecraft mission's Philae lander. Upon initial touchdown, however, the lander took a large bounce followed by a smaller one before finally coming to rest perhaps a kilometre away from Agilkia, at a site named Abydos, after the ancient Egyptian city.

The Aswan Low Dam or Old Aswan Dam is a gravity masonry buttress dam on the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt. The dam was built by the British at the former first cataract of the Nile, and is located about 1000 km up-river and 690 km (direct distance) south-southeast of Cairo. When initially constructed between 1899 and 1902, nothing of its scale had ever been attempted; on completion, it was the largest masonry dam in the world. The dam was designed to provide storage of annual floodwater and augment dry season flows to support greater irrigation development and population growth in the lower Nile. The dam, originally limited in height by conservation concerns, worked as designed, but provided inadequate storage capacity for planned development and was raised twice: between 1907 and 1912 and again between 1929 and 1933. These heightenings still did not meet irrigation demands and in 1946 it was nearly over-topped in an effort to maximize pool elevation. This led to the investigation and construction of the Aswan High Dam 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) upstream.

Shellal (Arabic: شلاّل) is a small ancient village on the banks of the Nile, south of Aswan in Upper Egypt. It was the traditional northern frontier of the Nubian region with both the Egyptian Empire and the Roman Empire. During the period of ancient Egypt, it was a very important quarry area for granite production. A canal was excavated in the vicinity of Shellal under Merenre Nemtyemsaf I during the Old Kingdom period in order to facilitate the navigation of the first-cataract of the Nile. This canal was restored under Senusret III in the Middle Kingdom period Nowadays it is possible to see some unfinished granite works on the site (that is soon to become an open-air museum); some of the objects on display include incomplete statues of Osiris and Ramesses II and unfinished Roman baths. Shellal was mentioned in a text dating from the 6th century AD where the king of Nobatia prides himself on having driven Blemmyes out from his country northwards from Ibrim to Shellal, on the frontier with Roman Egypt. It was also an important city during the Muslim Arab early domination; in particular there are some ancient minarets dating from the 11th century that are now submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser. These minarets are known to reflect the direct influence of the Hijaz region of Arabia, rather that the domination of the powers of Lower Egypt.

Aswan University is a university located in Aswan, Egypt. Established in 2012, it was previously known as the Aswan branch of the South Valley University.

The Famine Stela is an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs located on Sehel Island in the Nile near Aswan in Egypt, which tells of a seven-year period of drought and famine during the reign of pharaoh Djoser of the Third Dynasty. It is thought that the stele was inscribed during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled from 332 to 31 BC.

Sehel Island (Ancient Greek: Σῆτις) is located in the Nile, about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of Aswan in southern Egypt. It is a large island, and is roughly halfway between the city and the upstream Aswan Low Dam.

Aswan Stadium is a stadium in Aswan, Egypt. It has a capacity of 11,000 spectators. It is the home of Aswan SC.

Salouga and Ghazal Protected Area is one of the smallest protectorates in Egypt. It contains two main islands named Salouga and Ghazal managed by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Authority (EEAA) The name Salouga means waterfall in the ancient Nubian language. The two islands are located in the Nile River south of the city of Aswan but downstream of the Aswan Dam. It was established in 1986 with the purpose of protecting the biological diversity of threatened animals, plants and mammals. The designation of these islands in the River Nile includes:...they support a luxuriant natural vegetation cover including some of the only remnants of natural nilotic vegetation existing in the Nile Valley before cultivation by man. The islands protectorate shelters a botanical diversity of some 94 species... (including) many characteristic Nile fauna, particularly birds. The Protected Area plays an important role in preserving an exceptionally beautiful natural landscape of the Nile River at Aswan, which has long been one of the city’s primary tourist attractions. Increasing human pressures, including the careless use of fires on the mainland, have led to seriously damaging fires on the two islands.