Ana Maleziy, Philae Temple

Ana Maleziy, Philae Temple

The last temple we visited before we went back to civilisation was Philae Temple. It was like Abu Simbel, it was also relocated before the dam was built. Philae temple was different from other temple, it was built by non-Egyptians. The architecture was said to be a combination of three great civilisation of the time, the Greeks, the Romans and the Egyptians hence the Greeco-Roman-Egyptian architecture.

Oh. Orang sini ada yang tak cakap arab. Mungkin bahasa Ethiopia, mungkin bahasa Nubia, yang penting peliklah.

As we entered the temple by boat, we found that the temple was not symmetrical. Unlike the ones in Luxor, you cannot see a straight line from the entrance to the end of the temple. The hieroglyphs on the walls were mostly copied and pasted from existing ones in other temples. According to our guide, this temple was built when the Greeks came and conquered Egypt hence ending the thousands of years reign of the Kings. And the Greeks killed all the priests and the educated small groups of people.

At the time only certain groups of people were given the right to learn hieroglyphs so commoners cannot read. The Greeks, in order to claim the rightful ruler of Egypt adopted their religion but since they killed the priests, they couldn't make an authentic temple. Which is why the hieroglyphs were not genuine and a little exaggerated in a way they made the body figures too pornographic, unlike the real Egyptian hieroglyphs.

At the end of our tour, our guide explained about their latest effort to rewrite the history of the great civilisation. According to him, today they can calculate at which era did the Prophet Joseph lived and ruled Egypt as a minister. They can calculate the times when Moses and Aaron were alive, and they even found a temple that was written in it, a phrase which said 'Allah, the One God' or something like that which showed us in a certain part of the old Egyptian history, there were kings who practiced monotheism.

Thank you Mohamed, what a brilliant way to end an amazing trip. Mohamed was not a regular guide, he was an Egyptologist and is currently doing his masters degree after twelve years of digging. Just when we thought we have figured out everything about history. 

Here was our last temple (excluding the worthless Unfinished Obelisk site) before we began our painful 14 hours journey to Cairo.

Terima kasih kepada yang semangat membaca hehe. Aku minat sejarah, aku minat ketamadunan jadi aku suka baca tentang benda-benda ni. Some people asked, 'penting ke nak kena tau benda-benda ni?'

To those people, I would like to say, why shouldn't it be if it helps to strengthen my faith?