The word Nubian derives from the ancient word Nabu, and the Nubian people, around 1.6 million of them in the Aswan region, predominantly Muslim, have their own language and a cultural identity that predates the Arab conquest by a considerable margin.
The Nile is at its most visually striking here. Amber desert and pink granite form the backdrop, traditional feluccas move across the water in the afternoons, and the river itself takes on a colour, when you get close to the banks, that is genuinely unexpected. It is also, technically, crocodile habitat south of the dam, which adds a certain edge to swimming decisions.
I saw less of Aswan than I intended. Food poisoning from a rabbit stew kept me confined to my cabin for a stretch, and I missed the High Dam entirely. What I did see was enough to understand why people linger here longer than their itinerary allows.
Sights & Culture
Philae Temple (Temple of Isis)
Philae sits on an island in the reservoir between the old Aswan Dam and the High Dam, accessible only by boat, and the approach across the water does a lot of work before you even step ashore. The temple was relocated here in the 1970s as part of the same UNESCO salvage operation that moved Abu Simbel; the original island of Philae was submerged after the first dam was built in 1902, and the complex was painstakingly dismantled and rebuilt on the neighbouring island of Agilkia.
The mythology centred here is among the more dramatic in the Egyptian canon. Osiris, god of the dead and resurrection, was tricked by his twin brother Set into climbing into a coffin, which Set then sealed and threw into the Nile. When Osiris was eventually found, Set killed him again and cut the body into fourteen pieces, scattering them across Egypt. Isis, his wife, recovered the pieces and brought them to Philae, all except one, which had been eaten by a catfish. She transformed herself into a kite, a bird of prey, and used her wings to breathe life back into Osiris long enough to conceive their son Horus. Osiris was then mummified by Anubis, becoming the first mummification in Egyptian mythology and the template for the practice thereafter. Horus was raised in secret, away from Set, and eventually avenged his father.
The graffiti carved into the temple walls spans an extraordinary range: ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and more recent additions including inscriptions left by soldiers during Kitchener's campaigns in the late nineteenth century, among the last before the site was flooded.
The Nubian Village
A visit to one of the Nubian villages near Aswan, enclosed behind a substantial perimeter wall, with an ancient statue standing at its entrance, gives a grounded sense of how the community actually lives rather than how it presents itself to visitors. The mud-brick homes are painted in the vivid blues, yellows, and greens that have become the visual shorthand for Nubian culture, though the effect is less decorative than it is structural: a community maintaining a distinct identity under considerable historical pressure, having been displaced twice by the construction of the dams.
We had dinner at a local home restaurant, all the food arriving at once in the Nubian fashion, around 550 Egyptian pounds a head, and genuinely good.
Sports & Activities
Felucca on the Nile
An early morning on a felucca is the right way to see Aswan from the water. The boats are traditional wooden sailing vessels, unhurried by design, and the light on the granite islands in the morning is worth the early start. We swam in the Nile, which requires a certain commitment to the idea, and were joined at various points by a very small dog who seemed to consider the boat his personal territory. Lunch on a second boat followed. As ways to spend a day go, it is hard to fault.