It was built in the Ptolemaic era, in the 4th century BC surviving until about 536 AD or thereabouts, long after most other Pagan temples in the Mediterranean had been destroyed, closed, or turned into churches by Roman emperors who outlawed Paganism, after Christianity was declared the only state religion by Theodosius I in 380 A.D. The temple survived until the reign of the byzantine emperor Jus
tinian, who vowed to eradicate paganism once and for all.Justinian sent his commander Narses Kamsarakan down to Philae with a military garrison. The temple was looted and its sacred objects hauled off to Constantinople to fill the imperial coffer. The priests of Isis were imprisoned and not heard from again; they most likely endured torture and eventual ex*****on. The temple was then given over to Theodore, bishop of Philae, who vandalized it with the help of Narses' men, hacking away at the reliefs and sculptures, plastering the walls to hide the hieroglyphs, and then turning into a church. The temple still survives today almost intact - it was once brightly painted, but following the construction of the Aswan dam in the 20th century, it was flooded and all the paint was washed away. It was subsequently dismantled and moved to the island of Agilkia where it stands today.
