The last place in the ancient world where the old gods were still worshipped, reached by boat.
Philae was the great cult centre of Isis, and it held out longer than anywhere else: the last known hieroglyphic inscription in Egypt was carved here in AD 394, and the temple was still functioning when Justinian ordered it closed around AD 550, two centuries after the empire turned Christian.
You reach it by motorboat, which is much of the pleasure — the temple appears across the water with its pylons rising straight from the rock. Inside, look for the Coptic crosses cut into the walls by the monks who later used the hall as a church, and the deliberate defacement of Isis and Horus alongside them.
Like Abu Simbel, it is not where it was built. The first Aswan dam left the island submerged for most of each year from 1902; visitors rowed over the drowned columns and looked down at them. In the 1970s the entire complex was dismantled and rebuilt on neighbouring Agilkia island, which was reshaped to match the original.
Inside, look for the Coptic crosses cut into the walls by the monks who later used the hall as a church, and the deliberate defacement of Isis and Horus alongside them.
Go in the afternoon if you can. The stone turns gold in the last hours and the boat back across the reservoir at that light is the photograph people actually keep.
