Why

Aswan?

The Philae Temple Complex, located on an Island in the Nile River in Aswan, Egypt, is a stunning example of ancient Egyptian architecture and culture.

The temple was dedicated to the goddess Isis, one of the most important deities in the Egyptian pantheon. Over the centuries , various rulers and dynasties expanded and modified the temple, resulting in a complex that showcased a rich blend of architectural styles and artistic traditions.

Despite being partially submerged by the waters of the Nile due to construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, the temple complex remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in Egypt and a testament to the enduring legacy of the ancient Egyptians.

Philae was an important centre of worship of the Goddess Isis and remained one long after Christianity took root and began to spread across Meditarrean. The Cult of Isis, also reffered to as Mystery Religion of Isis, was one of the oldest in Egypt and one which enjoyed considerable popularity across the ancient world, particularly in Rome, despite Emperor Augustus’s ban on all things Egyptian after his clash with Queen Cleopatra VII and Marc Anthony at Actium.

Isis is the Egyptian interpretation of the ancient Mother Goddess.

The central creed of the Isis Cult is the promise of life after death, or resurrection, with Isis playing a very active role in Osiris’s fate. She is “every woman” in that her iconography is simultaneously that of a potent, dynamic, and proactive “Queen of Heaven”, as well as that of a grieving widow, and the loving mother of the young god Horus.

We choose to work with Isis in this retreat as in ancient Egyptian texts, no deity speaks more than Isis. The goddess was depicted as interacting with other deities, as well as with her followers, through speech. Features unique to her were translated across cultural and linguistic boundaries as her expanding biography responded to Greek influences following Alexander of the Great’s conquest of Egypt in 332 BC. One of these characteristics is her ability to engage in dialogue with others and to communicate effectively. Her verbal communication was a pivotal factor in the development of her cult as the world’s first universal religion. This essay examines the oral patterns and performative speech acts of Isis in pharaonic texts from the Old Kingdom onward and how her role as a communicator was later a central feature of Greece-Roman versions of her cult. In the Hellenistic period, Isis became a universal deity as changes were made to both her textual and icon graphic representations in order for her to appeal to non-Egyptian audiences across the Mediterranean and beyond for a period of more than six hundred years.