Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online) Philae Island (Agilkia) ProofRead and Updated January 13th 2021
The island of Philae, located amid the First Cataract some 7 kilometers south of modern Aswan,
housed an ancient settlement and one of the most extensive and best preserved temple complexes of
Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Together with the abaton on the neighboring island of Biga, Philae
was the most important cultic center of Isis and Osiris in Upper Egypt and Nubia. According to
the ground plan published by Lyons in 1896, the island measured c. 385 meters in length
(orientated south-north) and c. 176 meters in width. Today it is submerged in the lake between the
first Aswan Dam and the modern Aswan High Dam. For their preservation, the monuments of
Philae were transferred to the nearby island of Agilkia (1).
(1) PHILAE فيلة in the UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology by Holger Kockelmann
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