Agilkia Island (also called Agilika; Arabic: أجيليكا, from Old Nubian: ⲁ̅ⲅⲗ̅, romanised: agil, "mouth"[1]) is an island in the reservoir of the Old Aswan Dam along the Nile River in southern Egypt; it is the present site of the relocated ancient Egyptian temple complex of Philae. Partially to completely flooded by the old dam's construction in 1902,[2][3] the Philae complex was dismantled and relocated to Agilkia island, as part of a wider UNESCO project[4] related to the 1960s construction of the Aswan High Dam and the eventual flooding of many sites posed by its large reservoir upstream.[5][6] To allow Agilkia island to accominate the relocated temple, the island was leveled to match the old contours of Philae island as best as possible, which required the removal of the top of the island.[7]
Agilkia, like the island, was the name chosen for the planned landing site on a comet by the Rosetta spacecraft mission's Philae lander.[8][9] Upon initial touchdown, however, the lander took a large bounce followed by a smaller one before finally coming to rest perhaps a kilometre away from Agilkia, at a site named Abydos, after the ancient Egyptian city.
References
edit- ^ Browne, Gerald M. (1996). Old Nubian Dictionary. University of Virginia: In Aedibus Peeters. p. 4.
- ^ Frederic Courtland Penfield, Harnessing the Nile, Century Magazine, (February, 1899)
- ^ Sidney Peel, The Binding of the Nile and the New Soudan, Oxford 1904 , p.76
- ^ Monuments of Nubia-International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia World Heritage Committee, UNESCO
- ^ The Rescue of Nubian Monuments and Sites, UNESCO
- ^ Murray, Tim (2007). Milestones in Archaeology: a Chronological Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 464. ISBN 978-1-57607-186-1.
- ^ "Rr7526B Egypt: Saving the Philae Temples". YouTube. 21 July 2015.
- ^ Platt, Jane (6 November 2014). "Rosetta Races Toward Comet Touchdown". NASA. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
- ^ Knapton, Sarah (4 November 2014). "Historic Comet Landing Site Has a New Name: Agilkia". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
External links
edit
- Griffith, F.L. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). p. 373.
- Sacred Temple Island of Philae
- Philae @ The Domain of Het-Hert another alternative name for Hathor - aerial view of the temples
- Philae @ Akhet Egyptology