Aswan
— — the river slowing into granite and palm.
Not only on a wall.
“Egypt's southern city, on a stretch of the Nile where the river bends past granite islands and feluccas still cross at dusk. Once the gateway to Nubia and the source of the rose granite that built the temples downstream. Today the High Dam holds back Lake Nasser, and the relocated Philae Temple sits on Agilkia Island in the water above the old cataract.
Aswan, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Aswan sits on the east bank of the Nile in southern Egypt, about 900 kilometres south of Cairo and roughly 200 kilometres south of Luxor. Population is around 290,000. The city stands at the historical first cataract of the Nile, the natural southern boundary of pharaonic Egypt and the gateway to ancient Nubia. The west bank rises into desert; the river itself is dotted with islands (Elephantine, Kitchener's, Agilkia) that have been inhabited for more than four thousand years.
The granite quarries on the east bank of Aswan supplied the rose-pink stone for obelisks, sarcophagi, and colossal statues from the Old Kingdom onward. The Unfinished Obelisk, still attached to its bedrock, would have stood nearly 42 metres tall and weighed about 1,090 tonnes had it been completed for Hatshepsut in the 15th century BC. A crack in the stone ended the work. The quarry is now an open-air museum on the southern edge of the city.
The Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, holds back Lake Nasser, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, stretching about 480 kilometres south into Sudan. Before the dam was built, the temples of Philae and Abu Simbel would have been drowned; both were cut into blocks and reassembled on higher ground in a UNESCO-led rescue between 1960 and 1980. The relocated Philae Temple stands today on Agilkia Island, reached by motor launch from the eastern shore.