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]
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.
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]
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.