Philae (island)

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Philae (island) in hieroglyphics
N30 r
k 		X1
O49

I (at) -rek
J (3t) -rk
Place of time
p
N18 		N23 Z1
r 		N29 O49

Pa-ju-rek
P3-jw-rk
The island of time / The island of the end
Greek Φίλαι or Φιλαί (Phílai)
Φίλη (Phílê)
Coptic Pilak, pelak
Lepsius project tw 1-2-104-2.jpg
Ground plan of the island of Philae (mid 19th century)

Philae ( Arabic أنس الوجود, DMG Ânas el woǵud , formerly also Bilaq ; Coptic pilak or pelak ; also Hut-chenti , house of the beginning ) is an island in the Egyptian Nile Valley that is flooded by the reservoir of the old Aswan dam . It was located about eight kilometers south of the Upper Egyptian city ​​of Aswan . Was known Philae for built there temples ( Temple of Philae ) of Isis -Heiligtums passing through the dam to the neighboring island because of the flooding of the island Agilkia were transferred. The hieroglyphic reliefs of the temple complex are edited and published by the project "Edition of the Temple Inscriptions of Philae" of the Austrian Academy of Sciences .

etymology

The island's Latin name, Philae (also Philæ, Filae ), is derived from the Greek Phílai or Phílê from the ancient Egyptian naming Aâ-leq, Aâ-req, Aâ-lek, Aâ-rek, I-req, I-rek , which was later preceded by the article Pa or Pi .

This resulted in the readings "Pa-i-leq" or "Pa-i-req", translated as "the island of time", whereby the term "time" is based on an inscription on the Trajan kiosk in the spelling of " iw-rk ”from the ancient Egyptian equivalent“ req ”. The basis is the mythological connection to the sun god Re , who has lived on Philae since "the beginning of time". On this basis, the child Horus ( Hor-pa-chered ) sees himself as a descendant of Re and son of Osiris.

The demotic "P.ilaq" was derived from the older variants and means "the island of Laq". The name has been preserved in Coptic as "pilak" or "pelak".

history

At 400 meters long and 135 meters wide, Philae was the largest of three islands at the southern end of the first cataract , a rock barrier of the Nile marked by rapids . The other two river islands were Agilkia, about 500 meters away, higher up, and the small, particularly sacred island of Bigeh , on which the mythological tomb of the god Osiris was located. On Philae, located in the corner of a small bay on the eastern bank of the Nile, stood the temple dedicated to the goddess Isis, wife of Osiris; a place of pilgrimage for the ancient Egyptians . From here the priests set out in boats for Bigeh in order to offer gifts to Osiris on 360 sacrificial tables on the island, which is otherwise forbidden to human access.

Inscriptions or literary sources indicate that Philae had bishops from the beginning and certainly from the middle of the 4th century. A bishop Mark is confirmed for the year 362, so there should have been a church from this time on. The closure of pagan temples decreed by Emperor Theodosius I in AD 391 was not enforced on Philae. The island remained the last place in Egypt where the ancient cults were allowed to be practiced openly, which was also due to the fact that the sanctuary was of national importance and served to strengthen Roman influence beyond the imperial borders. Blemmyes , in particular , who did not belong to the Roman Empire , visited the temple regularly. The Isis cult on Philae was therefore only forbidden between 535 and 537 by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I , and the temple was closed on his orders. The driving force was the Patriarch of Alexandria, who sought to distinguish himself in this way. The priests of the cult had to leave the island; their temple was immediately converted into a church of St. Stephen . Dated inscriptions also name the bishop Theodorus von Philae - he officiated from around 525 to at least 577 - under whose direction the church was inaugurated. In addition to the three- aisled St. Stephen's Church built into the pronaos of the Temple of Isis , there were five or six other churches, judging by the small archaeological remains, whose construction dates back to the 6th to 8th centuries.

Philae in the 19th century

Philae was spared from flooding by the waters of the Nile until the 19th century. This changed from 1902 with the completion of the old Aswan dam five kilometers south of the city of Aswan. For ten months of the year, the island was flooded by the artificial reservoir. Only during the opening of the dams due to the high water pressure in August and September did the temple island dry out at times. The construction of the Aswan High Dam between 1960 and 1971 about six kilometers south of Philae opened up new problems for the buildings on the island: instead of an even water level, a constant inflow and outflow of water between the two dams of the old and new dam would have formed the foundations of the Washed out temple complexes. A collapse over time would have been the result.

Former location of Philae

In connection with the rescue operation for Nubia's monuments, plans were finally made to move the temple complexes from Philae to higher ground in 1972 . The northwestern neighboring island of Agilkia was chosen as the move location . They were redesigned taking into account the topography of Philae , the most important buildings were sawed into 37,363 blocks weighing between 2 and 25 tons and the facilities were rebuilt true to the original. The work lasted from 1977 to 1980. The individual items were moved: the temple of Isis, the pavilion of Nectanebo I , the Trajan pavilion, the small temple of Hathor , the temple of Harendotes , the pavilion of Psammetich II , the Hadrian -Bastion, the Temple of Imhotep , the Temple of Mandulis , the Temple of Arensnuphis-Dedun , the Temple of Augustus and the city gate from the northern part of the island. The buildings of Philae have been on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1979 .

More finds

An obelisk was found on Philae whose bilingual royal names Ptolemy and Cleopatra helped decipher the hieroglyphs.

Legend

According to legend, Philae is the place where Isis found the heart of her husband Osiris after - according to the Osiris myth - his brother Seth killed him, dismembered him and hid the parts all over the country. Ultimately, Isis and her sister Nephthys found all the scattered parts of Osiris and reassembled his body. But Osiris no longer wanted to stay in this world and decided on the hereafter. In a divine exchange, so to speak, Isis became pregnant and gave birth to the god Horus .

Philae Temple 2004

The reliefs inside the Mammisi (birth house) depict the birth of the child Horus who, as the adult deity Harendote , formed one of the two triads of gods on Philae with Isis and Osiris. Isis, revered as the mistress of the flood in the area around the first cataract , was popular throughout the Roman Empire as the goddess of fertility , love, and redemption . Philae was one of the major shrines of that time.

Not only the mother goddess Isis or the Nile were worshiped as life givers on Philae, but also the sun . As the daughter of Re , Tefnut appeared as Hathor in the myth of the gods The Homecoming of the Goddess, also as the sun eye . Against this background, Khnum-Re , Hathor von Bigge and Hor-pa-chered were worshiped on Philae as the second triad of gods . The two-sided nature of Tefnut is expressed in an inscription: as a Sachmet she is angry, as a Bastet she is happy . Sachmet, Bastet, Sopdet , Hathor and Isis are united in Tefnut. As the sun eye, the goddess had moved deep south to Nubia during the winter , which is why she was also nicknamed the Nubian cat :

“The celebration went away with you, the drunkenness disappeared and was not found. There is a serious quarrel all over Egypt. Re's ballroom is frozen, Atum's pump room is depressed. They all went away with you and hid from Egypt. One is in serenity among the Nubians. "

- The Homecoming of the Goddess, Demotic Papyrus

As the sun's eye, she evidently felt little inclination to return to Egypt . Re sent after her the messenger of the gods Thoth , who succeeded in persuading the apostate to return. Arrived in Egypt, the whole country celebrated her happy homecoming with the goddess as part of the Hathor festival and the Bastet festival :

“The monkey (Thoth) was before her in every place she would go. The goddess went on in joy, being the Tefnut in her beautiful form. It was reported to Re in the great palace. He came to Memphis from Heliopolis before them. He greeted the goddess and celebrated a party with her in Memphis. "

- The Homecoming of the Goddess, Demotic Papyrus

See also

literature

  • Hans Bonnet : Philae. In: Lexicon of Egyptian Religious History . Nikol, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 978-3-937872-08-7 , pp. 592-594.
  • Jitse HF Dijkstra: Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion: a regional study of religious transformation (298-642 CE) (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. (OLA) Volume 173). Leuven, Paris 2008; Dissertation at the University of Groningen (NL) 2005.
  • Jitse HF Dijkstra: Philae. In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 27, Delivery 213, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-7772-1524-2 , Sp. 574-591
  • Gerhard Haeny: Philae. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 617-20.
  • Johannes Hahn : The destruction of the cults of Philae. History and legend of the first cataract of the Nile. In: Johannes Hahn, Stephen Emmel, Ulrich Gotter (Hrsg.): From temple to church: destruction and renewal of local cultic topography in late antiquity (= Religions in the Graeco-Roman world. Volume 163.). Brill, Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-90-474-4373-5 , pp. 203ff.
  • Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto : Philae . In: Small Lexicon of Egyptology . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 978-3-447-04027-3 , p. 224.
  • Sandra Sandri: Har-Pa-Chered (Harpokrates): The genesis of an Egyptian god child (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. (OLA) Volume 151). Leuven, Paris 2006, ISBN 90-429-1761-X .
  • Torgny Säve-Söderbergh: Temples and Tombs of Ancient Nubia. The International Rescue Campaign at Abu Simbel, Philae and other Sites. Thames and Hudson, London / Paris 1987, ISBN 92-3-102383-7 .

Web links

Commons : Philae  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 24 ° 1 ′ 18 ″  N , 32 ° 53 ′ 20 ″  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Christian Leitz u. a .: Lexicon of the Egyptian gods and names of gods . (LGG) Volume 1. Peeters, Leuven 2002, ISBN 90-429-1146-8 , p. 536.Wolfhart
    Westendorf , Wilhelm Spiegelberg : Coptic Concise Dictionary. (Kopt. HWb) C. Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1977, p. 478.
    Henri Gauthier : Dictionnaire des noms géographiques contenus dans les textes hiéroglyphiques. Part 1 (GDG I), Le Caire 1925–1931, p. 47 according to Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (access only via login).
  2. ↑ a b Heinrich Brugsch : Geographical inscriptions of ancient Egyptian monuments. Volume 1: Ancient Egypt. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1857, p. 156 ( books.google.com ).
  3. ^ Karl Jansen-Winkeln: Philai. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 9, Metzler, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-476-01479-7 , column 780.
  4. ^ Edition of the temple inscriptions from Philae. of the OeAW in Vienna (Institute OREA), accessed February 18, 2019.
  5. ^ Philai trismegistos.org.
  6. ^ Siegfried G. Richter : Studies on the Christianization of Nubia. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89500-311-5 , p. 115.
  7. ^ Giovanna Magi: Aswan. Philae, Abu Simbel. Translated by Christine Hock. Casa Editrice Bonechi, Florence 1992, ISBN 88-7009-240-2 , p. 54.
  8. ↑ Johannes Hahn : The destruction of the cults of Philae. In: Ulrich Gotter et al. (Ed.): From Temple to Church. destruction and renewal of local cultic topography in late antiquity (= Religions in the Graeco-Roman world. Volume 163). Brill, Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-90-474-4373-5 , pp. 203 ff.
  9. ↑ Reinhold Merkelbach : Isis regina - Zeus Sarapis. The Greek-Egyptian religion depicted according to the sources. Saur, Munich 2001 (1st edition 1995), ISBN 3-598-77427-3 , p. 330 ( books.google.de ).
  10. ^ Siegfried G. Richter : Studies on the Christianization of Nubia. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89500-311-5 , pp. 123-126.
  11. ↑ As early as 1884, before the old dam was built, a move to Bigeh Island had been proposed, but the government was only able to bring about an initial reduction in the height of the dam (William Willcocks, James Ireland Craig: Egyptian Irrigation . Volume II, 3rd edition, Spon, London / New York 1913. p. 685)
  12. ↑ a b Giovanna Magi: Aswan. Philae, Abu Simbel. Translated by Christine Hock. Casa Editrice Bonechi, Florence 1992, ISBN 88-7009-240-2 , p. 56.
  13. ^ Jill Kamil: Aswan and Abu Simbel: History Guide. American University in Cairo Press, Cairo 1993, ISBN 977-424-321-8 , p. 77, ( limited preview in Google book search).