Aswan City
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Aswan City
Aswan
Aswan is the ancient city of Swenet, which in antiquity was the frontier town of Ancient Egypt to the south. Swenet is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name. This goddess later was identified as Eileithyia by the Greeks and Lucina by the Romans during their occupation of Ancient Egypt because of the similar association of their goddesses with childbirth, and of which the import is "the opener". The ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for trade
Because the Ancient Egyptians oriented toward the origin of the life-giving waters of the Nile in the south, Swenet was the first town in the country, and Egypt always was conceived to "open" or begin at Swenet. The city stood upon a peninsula on the right (east) bank of the Nile, immediately below (north of) the first cataract of the flowing waters, which extend to it from Philae. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier.
The Stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granite rock called Syenite. They furnished the colossal statues, obelisks, and monolithic shrines that are found throughout Egypt, including the pyramids; and the traces of the quarrymen who wrought in these 3000 years ago are still visible in the native rock. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road, four miles in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae.
Swenet was as equally important as a military station as that of a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a garrison town; and here were levied toll and custom on all boats passing southward and northward. The city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus (ii. 30), Strabo (ii. p. 133, xvii. p. 797, seq.), Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.), Ptolemy (vii. 5. § 15, viii. 15. § 15), Pliny the Elder (ii. 73. s. 75, v. 10. s. 11, vi. 29. s. 34), De architectura (book viii. ch ii. § 6), and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary (p. 164). It also is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah from the Scriptures (ref. Ezekiel 29:10).
The latitude of the city that would become Aswan, located at – 24° 5′ 23″– was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice a vertical staff cast no shadow. They noted that the sun's disc was reflected in a well at noon. This statement is only approximately correct; the ancients were not acquainted with the exact tropic: yet at the summer-solstice the length of the shadow, or 1/400th of the staff, could scarcely be discerned, and the northern limb of the sun's disc would be nearly vertical.
Eratosthenes used measurements at Aswan (Elephantine) to contest the Flat Earth theory and attempted to determine the circumference of the Earth, using Syene (as the Greeks called Swenet) as the originating point and Alexandria as the terminal point of a measured arc (based upon shadow length at the solstice) to make an accurate estimate of the circumference of the Earth. The Nile is nearly 3000 yards wide above Aswan. From this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt the river flows for more than 750 miles without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually occupied between 21 and 28 days in favorable weather.
 ** The High Dam:
The earliest attempt at building a dam in Aswan dates back to the 1000s, when the Iraqi polymath and engineer Ibn al-Haytham (known as Alhazen in the West) was summoned to Egypt by the mercurial Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the flooding of the Nile, a task requiring an early attempt at an Aswan Dam. After his field work made him aware of the impracticality of this scheme, and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness. He was kept under house arres from 1011 until al-Hakim's death in 1021, during which time he wrote his influential Book of Optics
The British began constructions for the first dam in 1889. Construction lasted until 1902. It was opened on 10 December 1902, by HRH the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. The project was designed by Sir William Willcocks and involved several eminent engineers including Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Aird, whose firm, John Aird & Co., was the main contractor. A gravity dam, it was 1,900 m long and 54 m high. The initial design was soon found to be inadequate and the height of the dam was raised in two phases, 1907–1912 and 1929–1933.
When the dam almost overflowed in 1946 it was decided that rather than raise the dam a third time, a second dam would be built 6 km upriver (about 4 miles). Proper planning began in 1954 just after the Egyptian Revolution led by the Free Officers, of whom Nasser was to become leader. At first the USA and Britain were to help finance construction with a loan of USD $270 million in return for Nasser's leadership on resolving the Arab-Israeli Conflict. However both nations cancelled the offer in July 1956 as part of the secret US-led 'OMEGA' policy to marginalize Nasser. A secret Egyptian arms agreement with Czechoslovakia (Eastern Bloc) and Egyptian recognition of the People's Republic of China are cited as possible reasons. In 1958, the Soviet Union stepped in and funded the dam project. The Soviets also provided technicians and heavy machinery. The enormous rock and clay dam was designed by the Soviet Hydroproject Institute.
Construction began in 1960. The High Dam, as-Sad al-'Aali, an embankment dam, was completed on 21 July 1970, with the first stage finished in 1964. The reservoir began filling in 1964 while the dam was still under construction and first reached capacity in 1976. The reservoir raised concerns from archaeologists and a rescue operation was begun in 1960 under UNESCO. Sites were to be surveyed and excavated and 24 major monuments were moved to safer locations (see Abu Simbel) or granted to countries that helped with the works (such as the Debod temple in Madrid and the Temple of Dendur in New York).On the Egyptian side, the project was led by Osman Ahmed Osman's Arab Contractors. The relatively young Osman underbid his only competitor by one-half.
 ** The Unfinished Obelisk:
The unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk, located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt in Aswan (Assuan), Egypt. It is nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected. If finished it would have measured around 42 m (120 feet) and would have weighted nearly 1,200 tons. Scientists speculate that it was intended to complement the so-called Lateran Obelisk which was originally at Karnak and is now outside the Lateran Palace in Rome. (Thutmose III obelisk in Lateran, Rome: 105 ft)
The obelisk's creators began to carve it directly out of bedrock, but cracks appeared in the granite and the project was abandoned. Originally it was thought that the stone had an undetected flaw but it is also possible that the quarrying process allowed the cracking to develop by releasing the stress. The bottom side of the obelisk is still attached to the bedrock. The unfinished obelisk offers unusual insights into ancient Egyptian stone-working techniques, with marks from workers' tools still clearly visible as well as ocher-colored lines marking where they were working.
Besides the unfinished obelisk, an unfinished partly worked obelisk base was discovered in 2005 at the quarries of Aswan. Also discovered were some rock carvings and remains that may correspond to the site where most of the famous obelisks were worked. All these quarries in Aswan and the unfinished objects are an open air museum and are officially protected by the Egyptian government as an archeological site.
 ** Kom Ombo Temple:
The Temple of Kom Ombo is an unusual double temple built during the rule Ptolemaic dynasty in the Egyptian town of Kom Ombo. Some additions to it were later made during the Roman period. The building is unique because its 'double' design meant that there were courts, halls, sanctuaries and rooms duplicated for two sets of gods. The southern half of the temple was dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world with Hathor and Khonsu. Meanwhile, the northern part of the temple was dedicated to the falcon god Haroeris, also known as Horus the Elder, along "with Tasenetnofret (the Good Sister, a special form of Hathor) and Panebtawy (Lord of the Two Lands)." The temple is atypical because everything is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis.
The temple was started by Ptolemy VI Philometor (180-145 BC) at the beginning of his reign and added to by other Ptolemys, most notably Ptolemy XIII (47-44 BC), who built the inner and outer hypostyle halls. The scene on the inner face of the rear wall of the temple is of particular interest, and "probably represents a set of surgical instruments.".
Much of the temple has been destroyed by the Nile, earthquakes, and later builders who used its stones for other projects. Some of the reliefs inside were defaced by Copts who once used the temple as a church. All the temples buildings in the southern part of the plateau were cleared of debris and restored by De Morgan in 1893. A few of the three-hundred crocodile mummies discovered in the vicinity are displayed inside the temple.
 ** Philae Island:
Philae is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Strabo (i. p. 40, xvii. pp. 803, 818, 820), Diodorus (i. 22), Ptolemy (iv. 5. § 74), Seneca (Quaest. Nat. iv. 1), Pliny the Elder (v. 9. s. 10), and was, as the plural name both in the Greek and Latin denotes, the appellation of two small islands situated in latitude 24° North, just above the cataract of Syene (in Ancient Egyptian: Swenet =trade). Groskurd (Strab. vol. iii. p. 399) computes the distance between these islands and Syene at about 61.5 miles (99 km).
Philae proper, although the smaller island, is, from the numerous and picturesque ruins formerly there, the more interesting of the two. Prior to the inundation, it was not more than 1250 English feet, or rather less than a quarter of a mile, long, and about 400 feet (120 m) broad. It is composed of Syenite stone: its sides are steep and perhaps escarped by the hand of man, and on their summits was built a lofty wall encompassing the island.
For Philae, being accounted one of the burying-places of Osiris, was held in high reverence both by the Egyptians to the north and the Ethiopians (Aethopians in Greek) to the south, and it was deemed profane for any but priests to dwell therein, and was accordingly sequestered and denominated the unapproachable (̓́αβατος, Plut. Is. et Osir. p, 359; Diod. i. 22). It was reported too that neither birds flew over it nor fish approached its shores. (Senec. Quaest. Nat. iv. 2.) These indeed were the traditions of a remote period; since in the time of the Macedonian kings of Egypt, Philae was so much resorted to, partly by pilgrims to the tomb of Osiris, partly by persons on secular errands, that the priests petitioned Ptolemy Physcon (170-117 BC) to prohibit public functionaries at least from coming thither and living at their expense. The obelisk on which this petition was engraved was brought into England by Mr. Bankes, and its hieroglyphics, compared with those of the Rosetta stone, threw great light upon the Egyptian phonetic alphabet.
The islands of Philae were not, however, merely sacerdotal abodes; they were the centres of commerce also between Meroë and Memphis. For the rapids of the cataracts were at most seasons impracticable, and the commodities exchanged between Egypt and Ethiopia were reciprocally landed and re-embarked at Syene and Philae. The neighbouring granite-quarries attracted hither also a numerous population of miners and stonemasons; and, for the convenience of this traffic, a gallery or road was formed in the rocks along the east bank of the Nile, portions of which are still extant.
Philae also was remarkable for the singular effects of light and shade resulting from its position near the Tropic of Cancer. As the sun approached its northern limit the shadows from the projecting cornices and mouldings of the temples sink lower and lower down the plain surfaces of the walls, until, the sun having reached its highest altitude, the vertical walls are overspread with dark shadows, forming a striking contrast with the fierce light which embathes all surrounding objects.
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