Visit to Philae, which can be reached only by small motorboats. Here we will visit the temple defined as the pearl of the Nile where pilgrims and warriors passed to venerate one of the most important female figures of ancient Egypt: Isis.

To see the temple, forty years ago, visitors’ boats headed toward the island of Philae, where the temple complex was originally built in the Ptolemaic period.

After the construction of the Aswan Dam, the level of the Nile rose, completely submerging the island and the temple for six months each year.

Through the clear water of the river it was possible to see the submerged courtyards and columns.

At the end of the 1970s, when the island would in reality have become permanently submerged, the temples were dismantled block by block and rebuilt above the water level on the nearby island of Agilkia, reshaped to resemble as closely as possible the submerged island of Philae.