When Amelia Edwards, the famous British travel writer, first visited Philae in 1873, her captivating words about the experience still apply today: “The approach by water is quite the most beautiful. Seen from the level of a small boat, the island, with its palms, its colonnades, its pylons, seems to rise out of the river like a mirage. Piled rocks frame it on either side, or the purple mountains close up the distance. As the boat glides nearer between glistening boulders, those sculptured towers rise higher and even higher against the sky.
All looks solid, stately, perfect. One forgets for the moment that anything is changed. If a sound of antique chanting were to be borne along the quiet air, if a procession of white-robed priests bearing aloft the veiled ark of the God, were to come sweeping round between the palms and pylons, we should not think it strange.”

At each Philae Sound and Light show, the Egyptian gods and goddesses are, like Osiris, resurrected before our eyes to tell us their life stories. What would Isis say today if she learned that her temple was allowed to sit in water for many years? She would not be happy with this, but she would be proud to know that, like her husband Osiris, Philae was reborn so that new visitors can see the glory of Philae year after year. ...