Agilkia_Island

Agilkia Island

Agilkia Island

Island in the Nile River, present site of the relocated temple complex of Philae


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]

Philae temple on Agilkia Island as seen from the Nile

Agilkia, like the island, was the name chosen for the planned landing site on a comet by the Rosetta spacecraft mission's Philae lander.[7][8] 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

  1. Browne, Gerald M. (1996). Old Nubian Dictionary. University of Virginia: In Aedibus Peeters. p. 4.
  2. Murray, Tim (2007). Milestones in Archaeology: a Chronological Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 464. ISBN 1-57607-186-3.
  3. Platt, Jane (6 November 2014). "Rosetta Races Toward Comet Touchdown". NASA. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
  4. 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.

24°01′31″N 32°53′03″E


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