Elephantine island

is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979

The island is located just downstream of the First Cataract, at the southern border of Upper Egypt with Lower Nubia. This region above is referred to as Upper Egypt because it is further up the Nile.

The island may have received its name after its shape, which in aerial views is similar to that of an elephant tusk, or from the rounded rocks along the banks resembling elephants.

Historical texts from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt mention the mother of Amenemhat I, founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, being from[5] the Elephantine Egyptian nome Ta-Seti.[6][7][8] Many scholars have argued that Amenemhat I’s mother was of Nubian origin.

Ongoing excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at the town have uncovered many findings, on display in the Aswan Museum located on the island, including a mummified ram of Khnum. Artifacts dating back to prehistoric Egypt have been found on Elephantine. A rare calendar, known as the Elephantine Calendar of Things, which dates to the reign of Thutmose III during the Eighteenth Dynasty, was found in fragments on the island.

In ancient times the island was also an important stone quarry, providing granite for monuments and buildings all over Egypt.

A nilometer was a structure for measuring the Nile River’s clarity and the water level during the annual flood season. There are two nilometers at Elephantine Island. The more famous is a corridor nilometer associated with the Temple of Satis, with a stone staircase that descends the corridor. It is one of the oldest nilometers in Egypt, last reconstructed in Roman times and still in use as late as the nineteenth century AD. Ninety steps that lead down to the river are marked with Arabic, Roman, and hieroglyphic numerals. Visible at the water’s edge are inscriptions carved deeply into the rock during the Seventeenth Dynasty.

The other Nilometer is a rectangular basin located at the island’s southern tip, near the Temple of Khnum and opposite the Old Cataract Hotel. It is probably the older of the two. One of the nilometers, though it is not certain which, is mentioned by the Greek historian Strabo.

Many sources claim that the fabled “Well of Eratosthenes”, famous in connection with Eratosthenes‘ presumed calculation of the Earth’s circumference, was located on the island. Strabo mentions a well that was used to observe that Aswan lies on the Tropic of Cancer, but the reference is to a well at Aswan, not at Elephantine. Neither nilometer at Elephantine is suitable for the purpose, while the well at Aswan is apparently lost.

The Aswan Museum is located at the southern end of the island. Ongoing excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at the island’s ancient town site have uncovered many findings that are now on display in the museum, including a mummified ram of Khnum. A sizable population of Nubians live in three villages in the island’s middle section. A large luxury hotel is at the island’s northern end.

The Aswan Botanical Garden is adjacent to the west on el Nabatat Island.

I will be your private guide here in Aswan
I can book anything you want
01115318162 2 +