Philae - Jewel of the Nile

Many visitors in historic times were awed and impressed by the beauty of the temple island. Situated at a level with the 1:st cataract in Upper Egypt, it was accessible by boat only, and the visitor could wander around the small island, enter the temples with its extraordinary beautiful paintings and reliefs, the color of which were well preserved all through the years until the waters from the Assuan dam filled them for most of the year. Then the damp started eating away at the colors of reliefs, column heads and ceilings and caused enormous damage.

The main temple at Philae as David Roberts saw it in the 18th century.

Amelia Edwards visited Philae in 1873-4:

"...The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it on either side, and the purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and even higher against the sky. They show no sign of ruin or age. All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air - if a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and pylons - we should not think it strange".

The Inner Courtyard.