231. Phîlé. Temple découvert.

Girault de Prangey's travels in Upper Egypt lasted three months and extended as far as the island of Philae, on the frontier between Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, at the beginning of the first cataract of the Nile. This represented a journey of over six hundred miles along the Nile from the Mediterranean. The island was the centre of the cult of the goddess Isis, to whom the majority of buildings were dedicated. This daguerreotype shows the Kiosk of Trajan, which was believed to to house the sacred barque of the Goddess Isis, when arriving or departing from the island for religious ceremonies.

Girault de Prangey's travels to Philae were well before the Aswan Dam was built in the 1890s, and when the temples were still partially flooded every year. After the completion of the dam the Kiosk was the only monument visible when the island was immersed. The frequent immersion of the structures in water caused considerable damage and after the completion, in 1970, of the new High Dam upstream, a decision was made to remove them to higher ground on the nearby island of Agilkia, where they are now.

Nine views from Philae survive in the photographer's archive, each in a similar small format. There are three other variant views of the Kiosk of Trajan, each framed horizontally, and taken from a more distant viewpoint.