The Pyramids： A Mystery Even Science Fears to Solve!

On a plateau in Egypt a few kilometers from the city of Cairo, Giza is a city on the left bank of the Nile, at its delta in the north. Giza is world-renowned for its immense necropolis and its very famous and great pyramids, those of Cheops, Kevren and Mykarinos. The Great Pyramid of Cheops, with its sides aligned to the four cardinal points, measures over 230 meters at its base, for a perimeter of 922 meters. It weighs about 5 million metric tons, each brick of polished limestone weighing an average of 2.5 metric tons. 137 meters tall, it dominates the Giza plateau. The Pyramid of Cheops, built under the ancient empire during the 4th dynasty, around 2650 BC, is the Great Pyramid. The tallest pyramid in Egypt and, until the beginning of the 20th century, it was also the largest, the highest and the most massive monument ever constructed. For 2,000 years, this pyramid has been one of the seven wonders of the world. If the sight stuns, it is still relatively recently that the scholars of the 19th century considered themselves incapable of reproducing the technical achievements of such works of art. Theories began to appear as they tried to get to the bottom of the mysteries. But the pyramid is above all a tomb and represents one of the purest and most abstract works of art ever conceived. The Pyramid of Cheops is part of a larger funeral complex, making up the Funeral Temple, an ensemble composed of these pyramids, the Queen's Pyramids, three other smaller ones and many mastabas grouped into three cemeteries. Little is known of Cheops' reign. Only one ivory statuette in his honor, about 10 centimeters high, has remained. He was the son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetepheres I and is considered by many to have been one of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt. He owes his reputation to his architectural exploits, among others being the Great Pyramid that took 20 years and 20,000 workers to build. Today it is considered to be perfection in construction and architecture. The entrance to the pyramid is 15.63 meters high and has above it a system of evacuation with arcs and monolithic beams. Today we have access to the infrastructures by a hole that was made by Caliph al-Mamun in 820. It was dug a few meters below the official entrance and gives out on the ascending corridor. The smooth covering of the pyramid was already in place by this time and hid the presence of the original closing. This entrance was closed by rolling a stone. The siding, originally composed of fine limestone, has almost entirely disappeared. There are only a few blocks remaining, resting on the stones at the base, unlike that of the Pyramid of Khefren, the son of Cheops, which has been much better preserved. During their heyday, the pyramids must have been majestically brilliant under the sun. The Pyramid of Cheops is part of a larger complex, made up of the pyramids of his son Khefren and his grandson Mycorrhinos. Mycorrhinos is the Greek name of the ruler Menkaur, under the fourth dynasty of the ancient Egyptian empire. He reigned from approximately 2490 to 2473 BC and succeeded Khefren. As did his father and grandfather, Mycorrhinos was dedicated to the idea of constructing a pyramid at Giza. His is the smallest of the three great pyramids of the plateau. This pyramid, farther south, is only a tenth of the size of the Pyramid of Cheops. It was 66 meters tall and its side 108. The funerary complex also includes three pyramids of queens, and Cheops had also included a tomb for his mother, Hetephetes I. The Pyramid of Khefren is the best preserved of the three. The base of the pyramid is a square of 250 meters per side, and it rose to 144 meters when it was constructed. It was coated with limestone siding, which only remains at its summit. Until the 19th century, the history of the exploration of the Pyramid of Khefren was often confused with that of Cheops. To have the first description of the pyramids, we turn all the way back to the Greek historian Herodotus. At the death of Cheops, the royal reign came to his son Khefren. The son followed in his father's footsteps and constructed a pyramid himself that in all honesty did not reach the dimensions of that of Cheops. The Giza Sphinx is the statue that stands before the great pyramids of the plateau. 73 meters long, 21 meters high, and 14 meters wide, the Sphinx is a monumental sculpture carved into a natural headland of solid rock. It is a therianthropic statue because it shows the intertwining, to mystical ends, of man and animal. Its head faces the east. The Sphinx's body is that of a reclining or couchant lion, and its head that of a ruler wearing the nemesis, or headcloth, emblematic of the pharaohs, decorated with a uraeus, the cobra, on the forehead. For a long time, it has been identified with the pharaoh Khafre, the son of Cheops, and the face might be that of Cheops himself. Several clues support this, such as the headdress, the breadth of his chin, the form of his ears, or his ceremonial beard. It is at the foot of the Sphinx, opposite the pyramids, that Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became the Emperor of France, famously declared, soldiers, from the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries look down upon you. Dendera lies in Egypt on the banks of the Nile River, around 65 kilometers to the north of Luxor. Begun under the reign of the last Ptolemy, the Temple of Dendera was finished during the Roman Empire under the Emperor Nero, around the year 60 AD. Its main temple, dedicated to the goddess Hathor, is the largest, covering some 40,000 square meters. It is also one of the most well-preserved temples of the site, if not the best in all of Egypt. It is also one of the most well-decorated of the Ptolemaic era. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor is the goddess of love, beauty, music, motherhood, and joy. The ancient Greeks identify Hathor as the goddess Aphrodite, and the Romans as Venus. In Egypt, the goddess of the power of femininity was Isis. But though the two goddesses were initially in competition, they were merged in the later periods, and we see representations of Isis with a haircut of Hathor appear. Hathor is generally represented as a goddess cow, with horns between which the solar disc and ureus appear. Dendera Temple is different from other Greco-Roman temples because it possesses neither monumental pylons nor a porticoed courtyard. Four columns with capitals ornament the façade, and one accesses the temple by entering directly into the hypostyle hall. The four heads of Hathor ornamenting the capitals of each column proclaim the universal character of the goddess. The scenes show the triad of Hathor, Horus, and their son, Harsumptus, who is offered the lotus which is linked to the rising sun. At certain hours of the day, the light skimming the architrave allows one to better contemplate the diverse divinities making offerings, who advance towards the centrally located symbol of the goddess, the winged solar disc. The hypostyle hall was decorated at the beginning of our era under the reigns of the Roman emperors Augustus and Nero. Eighteen Hathoric columns support the ceiling, the capitals of which feature the face of the goddess Hathor on four sides, wearing a heavy wig and capped by a sistrum, her favorite musical instrument. These plant-like columns evoke the night in which the moon hides. They represent the primordial swamp from which all creation springs, the source of all life. All of the columns and all of the inner walls are covered by magnificent hieroglyphs, the colors of which are still preserved underneath the dust. The ceiling of the hypostyle hall is divided by architraves into seven spans. They are a base for astronomic representations, the diurnal trajectory of the sun, the nocturnal trajectory of the moon, the twelve hours of the day and night, and even eclipses. Astronomy is linked to the cult of Hathor, and the priests closely followed the movements of the stars as a way of establishing a precise calendar of religious celebrations. Another span shows the lunar calendar divided in fourteen characters, representing the phases of the moon. The moon is represented by the eye. In the sanctuary, they put the boats destined for the goddess as well as her statues. The bas-reliefs depict a succession of daily religious rites the king had to accomplish, like breaking the seals of the door, worshiping Hathor, or offering her incense. Of course, the king himself could not accomplish all these rites on his own. These are the priests who acted as his substitutes for the task. Small, very narrow corridors built into the width of the walls or the foundations lead to small-sized decorated rooms. The crypts, hidden places exclusively reserved for priests. These rooms, arranged in several levels, serve to store divine and sacred objects, the treasures of the temple, religious materials, and the archives. Within the width of the wall, there is also a staircase that allows access to the roof. Halfway up the stairs, the procession would stop in order for the priest to complete all the rituals celebrating the union of the goddess Hathor to the solar disc. The roof of the temple was topped by the kiosk of the disc, laid out on a rectangle with its twelve columns pointing Hathor's face to the four cardinal directions. This is where the celebration of the new year was held each year. With the rising sun as part of the ceremony called the union to the disc, they would transport the statue of Hathor to the roof of the temple so that it could be regenerated by the solar rays of her father Ra. In another kiosk, the ceiling shows a famous map of the sky, the constellations, and the decans, which is known as the Dendera Zodiac. This is the only example of a circular representation of a zodiac in ancient Egypt. The Dendera Zodiac is a map of the stars projected on a plane. It shows the twelve constellations of the zodiac, the thirty-six decans, and the planets. Some of these are represented in the same forms as those of their familiar names, for example those of Aries, Taurus, Scorpio, Capricorn, or Leo. This site is extraordinarily well-preserved, with its colored religious bowel reliefs. The colossal site of Karnak is one of the largest religious complexes in the world, with an incredible architectural diversity. Situated on the right bank of the Nile River, to the north of Luxor, the complex extends over two square kilometers. The complex, classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is made up of a number of temples which are grouped into three separate enclosures. In former times, there was a landing jetty to which tugboats and vessels used for the animal grand ceremonies on the Nile would moor. The jetty extends into the Dromos. This is a processional alleyway on either side are cryosphinxes and between their legs are statuettes, which originally bore the names Teutmosis IV and Amenhotep III, Ramses II had them replaced with his own name. To pass through the enclosure wall, you have to go through the first pylon which leads into the first courtyard. In a site of this sort, where time and space gradually start to blur, archaeologists struggle to unravel the puzzle, to understand which of the stones from the ancient monuments have been reused and where. Here and there, we find the ruins of two small temples, a courtyard, or even more ancient monuments. Of the many buildings of the complex, only a few remain. A triple bark shrine for the barks of Amun-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu, attributed to Sedi II, and the remains of a kiosk, that of Tarko, a Nubian pharaoh of the 7th century BC. The 21-meter column which stood in the center of the courtyard is the last remaining trace of the kiosk, which once had 10 papriform pillars connected by stone architraves supporting a simple wooden floor. Pharaoh's sacred bark was kept under this. The second pylon is preceded by a vestibule in front of which stood colossal statues in pink granite. One was usurped by Pinidzem, a high priest who later became pharaoh, but it is actually thought to date back to the era of Ramses II, the golden age of the temple. The left-hand statue is 15 meters high, and at its feet stands another smaller statue showing pharaoh's wife or daughter. At the back of the great courtyard stands the second pylon. It is about 100 meters wide and close to 30 meters tall. Undertaken by Horemheb in around 1300 BC, with some of the stone coming from an earlier structure in the Akhenaton, construction of the second pylon was completed by Ramses II, and its decoration by Ramses III. It was restored and extended 1,000 years later during the Ptolemaic period. Like the temple of Seti II, the temple of Ramses III was built well before the construction of the final external wall of the site of Karnak. At the time, it stood outside of the religious complex. On the facade, we see a depiction of the king massacring his defeated enemies, as well as an image of the god Aman, to whom the temple is dedicated. The entrance to the temple is by way of the small pylon framed by two royal colossi. The building is made up of a courtyard, surrounded on three sides by a peristyle decorated with 16 statues of a pharaoh. Besides the courtyard, the temple of Ramses III consists of a vestibule, a hypostyle hall, and three chapels intended to house the sacred barks of the triad of Aman. The most majestic part of the temple of Aman is the hypostyle hall, located between the second and third pylons. Made up of 134 monumental columns, it resembles a gigantic papyrus thicket carved in stone. Originally, it would have been covered by a roof, with light filtering in through latticed windows, some of which are still in place. The inscriptions are still visible on the columns, most of which are still standing. An incredibly rich source of information for historians. The columns are perfectly aligned on the central axis of this immense hall, 103 meters long and 53 meters wide. The columns were roughly 23 meters tall. They increase from a circumference of 10 meters to 15 meters at the top, where the capitals open up into flowers. The supports for the side aisles are 15 meters tall, with a circumference of about 8 meters. In other words, lots of space for text. The inscriptions on the columns recount the sagas and exploits of several pharaohs. Engraved into the stone, they are there for all to read. The challenge is deciphering them. In the time of Thutmose I and Thutmose II, the area beyond the third gateway was the forecourt of the Temple of Amman, with a monumental pylon, the fourth, and two pairs of obelisks. The obelisk, which is still standing, the work of Thutmose I, is an immense block of monolithic granite, 22 meters high and weighing around 140 tons. The other monoliths were pulled down and transferred to the major cities of the Roman Empire, where they were shattered by earthquakes. Then, after a string of rooms, some better preserved than others, we arrive at the Holy of Holies. The chapel altar of Amman Ra was built during the Greek era in the 4th century BC. It replaced another identical one in pink granite, which was probably severely damaged. It opens on to the divine axis at both ends. At the height of his popularity, Amman was associated with Ra, the sun god, forming the cosmic god Amman-Ra, the eternal, the lord of Karnak, and creator of all things, who exists permanently in all things. Jewel of the Nile, constructed for the most part under the 18th and 19th dynasties in the 14th century BC, the Temple of Luxor or Opet in the south is an Egyptian temple dedicated to the cult of Amman. It is located on the side of the ancient city Thebes, the capital of the empire, which has also held the Karnak Temple in the north. Dedicated to the divine triad of Thebes, Amman, Mut, his wife, and Khonsu, their son, the Luxor Temple functioned in partnership with that of Karnak, to which it was linked with path lined with sphinxes, a dromos over two kilometers long and bordered by 700 sphinxes, with those close to Luxor in the image of the pharaohs. Each year during the festival of Opet, the god Amman would take this path to go to his southern harem in a grandiose procession. The oldest currently visible parts of the temple date back to Amenhotep III. It was later modified by Ramses II, who notably added six monumental statues and two obelisks, one of which was offered to France in 1831 and has stood in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since then. The great pylon entrance measures 65 meters wide and 24 meters high. Its two massifs were originally covered by a white primer decorated with precious metal plaques and sculpted decorations painted with vivid colors. Four baboons in poses of adoration are carved onto the pedestal of the pink granite obelisk that remains in place. This obelisk stands about 26 meters high and weighs around 230 tons. Its pyramidal summit was covered by a sheet of electrum, an alloy of 80% gold and 20% silver, which sparkled in the sunlight, symbolizing the sun god Ra. Luxor Temple was conceived according to a classical plan. Crossing the pylon through a narrow door, the procession which came from Karnak, where the solar boat of the god Ra would first cross this courtyard before getting to the sanctuary, where the statuette of the god was kept in the precious nous. This first courtyard, built under Ramses II, is surrounded by porticos, including a double row of 74 massive columns that recall those of Karnak. The south end of courtyard is also ornamented by colossal statues that alternate with the columns. Eleven giant statues on foot and two colossal statues sitting. The majority of them were sculpted in granite and they all carried the name Ramses II. The colossal statue materializes two facets of the king, the human and the divine. The role of the colossal statue is the cult, the elevation of the king to divinity. Ramses II was a great theologian. He adopted for himself the initiative of the monotheistic cult of the sun begun by Akhenaten, but he also preserved the traditional religions. While working to develop a religion without borders based on his own person, he continued to favor the temples of the great gods of the empire, Amun, Ra, Ta or Osiris, in order to bring the people together. He bestowed a splendor without equal to temples and cults to gods all over. Two more sitting colossal statues in the form of Ramses the Great precede the entrance of the great processional colonnade. The reliefs on the lateral walls of the pathway date back to Tutankhamen and Hormeb in the 14th century BC. They show the official festival of Opet. This celebration took place during the second month of the flood season. In a ceremonial boat pulled by a procession from the Nile River during its growth, the Theban triad of Amun, his wife Mut and their son Khonsu would travel from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple, surrounded by soldiers, musicians and dancers. There, the god Amun, taking on his fertile form Amun-min, the phallic, rediscovered his vigor. And then, at the end of the celebrations that would last 11 days, he would return to Karnak, this time by way of the great Dromos, still in the company of his divine family. Built around the sanctuary of Amun-min, Luxor Temple was consecrated to the mystery of life that the god Amun, in the form of the beneficent Nile River, renewed each year. The colonnade leads to the second hypostyle courtyard. But let's go back to ancient times and another room with representations of the gods, located nearby at the end of the temple. This small room with four columns held the table of offerings. Here, during the 15 days of the festival of Opet, priests followed each other in, leaving the diverse fresh victuals that were necessary for the festivities of the gods. The decorations show Amenhotep III paying tribute to God and receiving the crown of Egypt from the hands of his divine father Amun. The rooms leading up to the Naos commemorate the myth of the king's supernatural origin in graven images. Amun will once again marry Mut, who will again give birth to Khonsu, a ritual where the pharaoh will also be reborn from his father Amun. Thus, each new reign favored the beginning of a new cycle. Furthermore, this allowed a celebration of the permanence of the royal function, periodically renewed by Amun. This was, in fact, the major function of such a temple. On the left bank of the Nile, 755 kilometers south of Cairo, between Aswan and Luxor, is Edfu. The god of this city was a falcon god and its temple is devoted to the cult of Horus. This is the greatest and biggest temple of the Ptolemaic dynasties, in other words, from the Greek period, around 300 BC. 137 meters long, 79 meters wide, and with pylons of 36 meters, it is one of the best preserved temples in Egypt, dedicated to the triad composed of the father Horus, his wife Hathor, and their son, Harsimotos. Before the masted entrance are two gray granite statues of the falcon god. The cult of Horus, that which is above, is one of the oldest of Egypt. It dates back to prehistoric times. Horus is a god of many facets. He is the celestial falcon whose right eye is the sun and whose left eye is the moon. He is also Horus of the horizon, in a constant race with Ra, the sun of the morning and the sun of the night. And in the Assyrian myth, Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis. Osiris, assassinated by his brother Seth, is brought back to life to unite once again with Isis. From this miraculous reunion was born Horus, son of Isis. Beyond the great pylon, the great paved courtyard is surrounded on three sides by a gallery of columns, the last of which are topped with capitals, composites, florals, and open tops, with their trunks entirely decorated with stories of the king before the gods. All the columns are different. The temple's inscriptions provide important information since they detail the acts of daily worship to Horus and the ceremonies of the four greatest annual celebrations. Walls and columns tell of the different rites and rituals. We see the feluccas as they go up the Nile, or not, with or without their sails. The decorations of the courtyard are based on the celebrations of Hathor and Horus, but also of the divinities linked to Horus in one way or another. Here the wall is decorated with bar reliefs evoking the sacred ceremonies of the pharaoh. At the back stands a superb statue of Horus the falcon, wearing the double crown of upper and lower Egypt. Carved from a block of grey granite, this statue guards the entrance to the sanctuary. The façade of the pronaos is formed by six columns with palmed and floral capitals, between which are low walls, separating the interior court of the temple. Before entering this part of the temple, the king had to be purified. The façade reliefs represent this ritual realized by Horus and Toth. The ceiling of the vestibule is supported by 12 columns with varying capitals decorated with flowers and palms. Above the door is a winged disc framed by Euraeus, representing Horus. On the side walls of the vestibule we can read that the first stone of this temple was placed the 7th epiphy of year 10 of the reign of Ptolemy III, making it August 23rd, 237 BC. Going towards the temple, the floor rises, the ceilings lower and the light diminishes, making the sanctuary an obscure and mysterious place. At the back of the vestibule is the entrance to the hypostyle hall, supported by 12 columns. Here we see the 12 nocturnal hours of the day. On the walls of this room, as on the sides of the first hypostyle hall serving as the vestibule, scenes of offerings, parades, liturgical activities and many of Egypt's divinities are honored. On the north wall, we see a procession of divine barks of Hathor and Horus. Leaving the hypostyle hall, we go to the offering room. As its name states, it is here that the divine offerings were placed on the altars and sideboards. One of the chapels surrounds the sanctuary that houses a replica of the sacred bark. The divinities were carried by bark to visit other gods and other temples during majestic processions. The room gives off a strong mystical force. A granite temple of four meters high still stands at the center of the sanctuary. Here, the effigy of Horus, decorated and anointed with balms, receives offerings three times a day, accompanied by music and prayers. In the morning, after having gone up the stairs to the chela, the great priest broke the seals that had been placed the night before, opening the two doors to awaken the divine statue and allow it to begin its daily tasks of creation. At night, he closed the cedar doors, sealed them anew and retired by walking backwards after having erased all traces of his footsteps with the help of a broom. Between the temple and the surrounding wall, a corridor isolates the temple from the outside world. This one is adorned with scenes from the myth of Horus, in which the god had to prove, through many trials, that he was deserving of the Egyptian throne. Many great celebrations are represented. The fertility ceremonies of the Nile, which are linked to the annual visit of Hathor from Dendera, where she comes to reunite with her husband. In the Christian era, the temple was transformed into a church, explaining the destruction of part of the reliefs. The west wall tells the story of Horus' combat against Set, a hippopotamus and the murderer of his father, Osiris. To avenge the death of his father, Horus confronts him and wins the battle, thus inheriting the Egyptian throne. The contrary of Set, who represents violence and chaos, Horus represents order and, like all pharaohs, he's the guarantor of universal harmony. In Egypt, it is this belief that bathes the Nile Valley. In southern Egypt, along the Nile, 40 kilometers to the north of Aswan is Kom Ombos, from the Greek Ombos, meaning City of Gold. A medium-sized town during the Pharaonic era, it grew into a substantial metropolis by the Ptolemaic era after the year 300 BC. Its temple became one of the most important in the Nile Valley. This temple was extended and replaced an older, smaller sanctuary, constructed more than 1,000 years earlier. A double wall was built, bringing all of the buildings into one enclosure. To this day, all of the walls and corridors of this temple are covered with reliefs, some of which still have traces of color. Unusually, the Kom Ombos temple is a double temple, dedicated to two distinct triads, that of Horus and that of Sobek, the crocodile god. Sobek is the god of water, charged with irrigating the crops. The presence of crocodiles in the Nile was a sign of high water levels, which brought plentiful harvests. In those days, the crocodile was seen as a sacred animal. The present-day temple was built by the Ptolemies, but was extended and embellished many times during the Roman era. The courtyard, for example, was built by Tiberius and the pylon by Domitian. Not much remains of these extensions, because the erosion of the east bank has caused several structures to disappear completely. The embankment collapsed, as did the Mamisi. Part of the surrounding wall disappeared, and the temple lost its roof. Going back towards the temple, we walk the length of the sanctuary wall, which is engraved with depictions of offerings and tributes, evidence of the country's wealth and power. The pylon of Domitian was built during the Roman era, and was severely damaged. It features scenes of Domitian making offerings to the gods. Unusually, the Kom Obo temple was dedicated to the cults of two gods, both equally important. Horus, the falcon-headed god, and Sobek, the crocodile god. These two divine entities represented two of the elements essential to all life in Egypt. Sobek was connected with water, and Horus with light. The whole temple is separated in two. The northern part is dedicated to Horus, and the southern half to Sobek. Each of the parallel halves of the monument has its own separate entrance, but they connect transversely. A complicated series of doors make it possible to isolate or connect the two sanctuaries for different occasions. Inside the sacred area, the first hypostyle hall has a facade which is decorated with the name of Ptolemy XII, surrounded by Toth and Horus in a purification scene. The ceiling is decorated with cosmographical representations, and is supported by two rows of five lodeform columns. The room, its columns, and walls are entirely covered with scenes of worship. And all of the divinities of the site are featured. The second hypostyle hall has exactly the same layout as the first. And amongst the divinities depicted is the god Hathor. On leaving the hypostyle halls, we enter the three intermediary rooms, or vestibules. At either end of the vestibules are two lateral rooms which probably contain the temple treasures and the stores of offerings. Depending on which side of the temple you're in, it is dedicated to either Sobek or Horus. As you approach the holiest of holies, the ceilings are covered with magnificent colored relics, here in honor of Horus. At the back of the temple, the two sanctuaries devoted to Horus and Sobek stand side by side. In fact, Kom Obo was divided in two by an imaginary line, a religious and mystical barrier, just like the Nile Valley, which is one of the greatest of mankind's civilizations. In Upper Egypt, in the Nile Valley, among the numerous temples and tombs left there by the different pharaonic dynasties that were later restored, the Temple of Philae is unique in that it was moved stone by stone. After the British built the first Aswan Dam in 1894, the annual rise of the Nile River floods the island of Philae 10 months out of the year. The temples and other structures on the island were either partially or fully submerged by water. Plans of how to save the site were discussed, and the chosen solution was similar to that which had been employed at Abu Simbel a few years earlier, dismantling the ruins and reconstructing them on a site about 300 meters away. Agilkia Island is located about 300 meters from the original island. In the ancient town of Philae, there was a temple dedicated to Isis. Its construction was begun by Nectanebo I, one of the first Egyptian pharaohs, and finished by the Romans. The temple was dedicated to the cult of the goddess and attended by the Nubian community until the mid-6th century, when Emperor Justinian ordered it to be transformed into a Coptic church. Isis was the mother goddess of the Egyptian cult. She was woman, wife, and universal mother, goddess of marriage and of children. As a magician who had brought her husband Osiris back from the dead, she was seen as a healer and protector of children. 18 meters tall, the first pylon stood at the entrance to the temple's sacred enclosure. It was Nectanebo I's grand gateway, topped with a winged disc and decorated with a series of depictions of offerings, featuring Horus, Hathor, and Isis, that was badly damaged during the Christian era. On the second pylon, which is 30 meters wide and 14 meters high, the king officiates before Horus and Isis. It was during the Ptolemaic era that the cult of Isis and Osiris started to spread southwards. The first courtyard, leading up to the first pylon of the grand temple of Isis, contains a number of different structures. On the right, an unfinished portico from the Roman era made up of a facade of 16 columns, leads to a series of minor sanctuaries dedicated to Aron Sufis, Mandulis, and Imhotep. The second courtyard is boarded on the western side by the Mamisi, dedicated to Isis the Ancient, and to the east is a colonnade which opens onto five rooms, including the library and the laboratory where they mixed perfumes. The central door in the second pylon leads to the holiest area of the building and opens on to the hypostyle hall. This room is lit by an opening in the ceiling at the back of the second pylon. The 10 columns are richly decorated with scenes of worship and offerings. This was a tribute to Isis, the most beautiful goddess of all. On one of the columns is the cartouche of Cleopatra III, and despite what some guides might claim, there are absolutely no cartouches of the Cleopatra VII, the one with the big nose. The Holy of Holies, the most secret part of the temple, bathed in shadow. Greatly complex, it comprises 12 rooms and a crypt. The rooms are all ornaments with liturgical scenes and scenes of offerings related to the myth of Isis and Osiris. The shrine itself lies deep inside in the central room. The naos, sheltering the statue of the goddess. You can still see the pedestal for Isis's bark, made of red granite. Here, once again, the walls are literally covered with magnificent ritual scenes. The lithic art of Philae at its best. Egyptian mythology says that in the beginning, Osiris ruled the Nile with his sister and wife, Isis. Osiris was a good, wise king and Egypt prospered. But Isis and Osiris had a jealous brother, Set, the king of the desert, who wanted to take the place of Osiris. One night, Set invited Osiris and Isis to dinner and brought out a magnificent sarcophagus, promising to give it to the one who could fill it. Several nobles tried without success. Then came Osiris's turn and he laid down in the sarcophagus, hardly imagining that it had been designed specifically for his dimensions. The treacherous Set closed his brother in the sarcophagus and threw it into the Nile. Isis left to search for her husband. Her voyage led her to the place of King Byblos across the seas. But Set discovered it, cut it into 14 pieces and dispersed them into the Nile. Isis, persevering, found them all. And then, after having put the pieces of her husband back together, she brought the body back to life. The god Horus was born from this love. Since that day, Isis cries every year for the death of her husband. And legend has it that the Nile floods because it is full of her tears. This myth is depicted by the reliefs on the Naus at the Temple of Philae, the Temple of Love.