Elephantine Island
by Nigel Fletcher-Jones
Title
Elephantine Island
Artist
Nigel Fletcher-Jones
Medium
Photograph - Photograph - Digital Art
Description
The ancient town of Abu sits on Elephantine Island at Aswan on the same band of granite that creates the First Cataract across the Nile.
From the earliest period of the unification of Egypt (c. 3100 BC), and probably before, there was a settlement here surrounded by a defensive wall. Over centuries, the town’s position made it increasingly valuable to the Egyptian state as a staging post on the northward trade routes from Nubia and Central Africa.
Elephantine was also known to be the home of the god Khnum who was seen for many centuries as the god of the source of the Nile and was thought to live in caves below the island. The ruins of the last temple to Khnum 0n the island can be seen at the center top of the image.
The temple (lower right) to his consort, the war goddess Satet, probably predates that of Khnum. With the eventual addition of their daughter Anuket, the three deities made up a major divine triad in Upper Egypt.
A stone staircase descends to the river from the temple of Satet that functioned as a 'Nilometer'. This was used to measure the annual Nile flood from the Pharaonic Period up until the 19th century AD (the small entrance can be seen to the far right at the river level).
Uploaded
September 10th, 2020
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