Nile Cruise Luxor Aswan Nile Cruise Luxor Aswan From antiquity down to the present day the district around modern Aswan,including the island of`Elephantine,has marked the limit of Egypt proper in the direction of Nubia. Before the construction of the High Dam it was strategically important because it commanded the Nile cataracts and the channels that fostered […]

Kalabsha Temple Kalabsha Temple is the largest free-standing temple from Nubia and, apart from the rock temples of Abu Simbel, is the most impressive- it was described by early travelers as the ‘Kamak of Nubia,’ It was saved and transported to its new site by the (then) Federal Republic of Germany. Gver a period of two […]

Saving Philae island Saving Philae island Egypt launched an international appeal through UNESCO. Many projects were presented for study. One of the most feasible was the construction of a protective dam on the western side of the island. This would effectively cut off the island from the main flow of the river and, theoretically, let it […]

Philae island Philae island The island of Agilkai (Philae) lies in the center of the lake formed between the Aswan and High Dams. Vessels approach from the north, and usually along the west side of the island toward its entrance at the southern tip. The boats generally return to the mainland along the east and […]

Elephantine Museum Elephantine Museum This delightful museum (7 on plan p. 41) was first opened in 1912. It is approached by a stairway leading up from the river. It was built in 1906 as a rest house for the Irrigation and Antiquities Departments involved in building the Aswan Dam and also to store the antiquities […]

Granite Quarries The famous granite quarries lie in the hills to the south of Aswan, just off the main road. They were the main source of granite in Egypt, exploited from earliest times right through to the Greco-Roman Period. The Fourth Dynasty pharaohs who built the pyramids at Giza (2613-2494 B.C.) were among those who […]

Plantation Island Plantation Island This island, originally known as Kitchener’s Island, was deeded to British Field Marshal and Egyptian Consul General Kitchener by the British government in gratitude for his services in Sudan, specifically for his suppression of the Mahdi revolt. Egypt was still a British protectorate when he died in 1916, and the island reverted […]

Nubian Museum The new Nubian Museum lies southeast on a rocky slope overlooking part of ancient need to build a special museum house the Nubia was realized years before the High Darn in 1971. Excavations schemers around the  yielded such an abundance of diverse objects that no museum could allocate the space needed to house […]

The High Dam High Dam To a Greek-Egyptian agifonomist, Andrian Dannios, must go credit for the idea of building a dam at Aswan so large that it could provide for long-term storage of water as well as protect against high and low floods. His concept was not, however, to take root until after the 1952 […]