Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-22
PHlLAE SUBMERGED.
Ancient Temple to be Drowned by the
Assuan Dam.

ilIitS temples, SET AMIDST PAIN trees
high above the Nile, are soon to be
drowned out by the disng floods of
that great stream. In the early days
of January this destruction will take
place, and, in the words of
writer forecasting this event from
Assuan, the buildings may remain
indefinitely, but those halls and pylons
which, belted about by graceful trees,
stood commandingly above the river,
will be as the hulk of a derelict ship
aground in tidewater, her once grace
full lines and decorated cabin draped
with weeds and green slime, a place of
reeking damp and foul smells when
the receding tide permits of entry"
Truly a sad conclusion for the noble
Hall of Columns in the Temple of Isis!
And truly does it take all ones philos-
ophy to agree with the wise and quiet
comment of The London Times when
that organ, formative and reflective
of British opinion, points out that the
drowning scheduled for January, 1918.
is to be only the last in a mournful
series of rites which began when the
dam began to be built ten years ago.
''Philae, as the artists knew her" we
are told, died when the dam was
built: all this time she has lain in
state amid perpetual lamentation. g.
The flooding of Philae had as it's
Alternative the risk of the starvation of
Egypt. and the building of the dam is
not the act of vandalism which in
some quarters it has been asserted to
be. Let us now remember the common
veal of Egypt and steel our hearts
into Il happy Philistinism.'
In other words, the lesson which low
ers of ruins must learn from Philae is
this: when art conflicts with bread
cut oat art. Could the starving soul
in the garnet see things in that way
the world might have fewer geniuses
and more office boys. Could every
nation follow the example of Egypt
there might be less starvation and less
archaic ruins of dubious Importance
There is a parable yet to be composed
on the ASsuan Dam.
There are those who claim for the
Philae Temples a place among the
glories of the ancient world, although
ii should be noted that the advertise
ment of their beauty during late years
has chiefly been due to the progress
of the Assuan Dam. They are not the
best examples of even an inferior pc
Rod. Their construction, as critics
have pointed out, is not perfect, and
in some cases they are unfinished.
When the question of removing them
bodily to dry land for permanent pres
ovation was agitated it was believed
by many that the imperfection of the
material was such that reerection
could not have been possible. And as
the great dam has proceeded during
the last decade, it was discovered that
the beauties of Philae We're almost en-
tirely eXtrinsie, vanishing with the
first storage of the water when the
palm trees We're drowned and the bril-
liant tints of the sun kissed stone
work Were washed into a dull gray or
hidden by the growth of water weeds.' -
An Assuan correspondent of the
London Times has traced the recent
history of Philae, and the gradual de-
cay which is to end so abruptly next
January
Like most other Egyptian temples.
he states, those of Phlae have been
lived in by villagers for centuries af-
ter the decline of the old religion, and
the presence of animals, biped and
quadruped, has had the result of pro-
ducing an accumulation of organic
refuse which in the passage of time
has disintegrated and left considerable
quantities of salts. When the reser-
voir level was first raised in Decem-
Der, 1902, the water dissolved these
salts, and the porous sandstone of
which the temples are composed drew
up the solution of capillary attraction.
On the emptying of the reservoir at
the beginning of summer the salt So
luton retained in the walls crystal
lized, with the result that the particle 5
of sand forming the stone were dis
placed by the salt crystals, and a GER
tain amount of cracking and scaling
took place at the high water level
and in the soakage-line foot or SO
above that level This process has
REQUIRED after each winters flooding.
and the effect is now, after nine years,
quite noticeable. The sculptures upon
the stone so affected have consider
ably deteriorated, and in certain parts
are now almost indistinguishable.
The stagnant water of the reservoir
Especially in the flooded courts and
passages of the temples, where the
sun can penetrate) affords fine
nursery for water weeds of various
kinds, so that. when the level of the
reservoir is lowered in April, May ana
June. those portions of the temple
which have been covered by shallow
waters are seen to be draped with
green slime and weeds. This decays
rapidly in the hot sun and stencil is
quite remarkable until everything is
dried up.
But the smell is the least part of
the affair; the water vegetation dries
into a whitish skin which gradually
falls off, and the effect is as if the
buildings had been stuck over with
dirty blotting paper; this peels off
later in tags and patches and fiutters
in the breeze. Unfortunately some
of the surface of the sculptured stone
appears to come off with this plaster
of dried weed. At one time the
Antiquities Department engaged men
to scrape off this plaster with wooden
implements (Where it adhered too
firmly IN he peeled nv the hand0 but