Aswan

Among the major attractions of Aswan are of course the Aswan Dams. The first was finished in 1902, and was the largest in the world in its days. The new dam was completed in 1971, and was constructed as a result of the increasing Egyptian population. At the southern end of Aswan is one of the granite quarries that supplied the stone for temples and colossi in ancient times. In one section of the quarry lies a gigantic unfinished obelisk, which had been hewn from the bedrock but later abandoned after a flaw was detected. Had this obelisk been finished it would have weighed 1168 tons and stood at a height of nearly 42 metres. The Temple of Philae is a superb temple complex dedicated to the goddess Isis. Built by the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, this temple had to be dismantled and painstakingly reassembled on the Eglika Island in the '60s when the Aswan Dam was constructed.