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Temple
of Isis
Today we traveled away from Cairo to a temple dedicated
to the Egyptian goddess Isis. The temple was destroyed
by an earthquake and is located on the Nile Delta where
the soil is very loose and the water table is high.
The site has not been reconstructed due to a lack of
funds and concern over whether or not the restored site
would survive in the deltaic environment.
The
main stones that we observed were diorite and granite
with porphoritic inclusions. Most of the temple walls
were inscribed with hieroglyphics dedicated to Isis.
The French have done some surveys and excavations that
yield some theories as to the original structure of
the temple. The temple was originally two stories tall
as evidenced by the stone remains of a staircase. Our
hypothesis was that ground motion during the earthquake
that destroyed the temple would have been in a SE/NW
direction due to the way the blocks of the temple fell
down in relation to one another.
It
was interesting to see the ruins as compared to the
reconstruction elsewhere as it gives a sense of the
huge undertaking it must be to reconstruct such a large
monument.
Erica Schneider
Geosciences Senior
Egypt—May 19, 2001
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