March 23rd - 13:33

Title: March 23rd - 13:33 Medium: Super-8 film Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Resolution: 2880 x 2160 File Type: H.264 Codec / MP4. Comments: In the city of Aswan is the Philae temple complex sitting atop of the Nile. It was moved to new heights when they were building the dam in the early 1900's. There are stone stories of mythological figures that tower over you when you stand in front of the outer walls. Inside are patterns of hieroglyphs like lines of code across every surface. There is one pillar that was etched with the mark of a templar cross, a sign that they hid out here during persecution. Perhaps to leave a trail behind. We made uncles portrait outside in the sun with the life size murals of Isis, Hathor, and Osiris history playing out like a theater casted into the walls for thousands of years. What does it mean to move the stones from its original placement? Is it still the same place, or somehow altered. Yet, it feels like it had never moved in the first place and is intact. You could not tell unless you were told. They call this the temple of Isis. She is the premier goddess of magic, motherhood, fertility, and healing in ancient Egyptian mythology. As the devoted wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, she was revered as a powerful protector, a mourner of the dead, and a protector of women and children. Across the water is a small relic of Osiris temple that the tides go up and down from the few stones remaining. A quiet place where you can do morning yoga at the sun gate while the water rests. You need a boat to get there, on both islands. After being murdered and torn into pieces by his brother Set, Osiris's wife, Isis, gathered his remains (except the phallus) and revived him with magic. He did not return to the land of the living, but became the ruler of the dead. He holds power over life, death, and the annual flooding of the Nile, representing agricultural fertility. Were these gods real people, or stories imagined? To create something is to live through the experience from your knowledge. Were these deities among the people, or representations of the plant and animal spirits through anthropomorphic forms? Who communicated these stories to their people. Was it the priests or kings that ordered the walls be sculpted with these images that communicated what had occured? A sort of record keeping, an obsession of knowledge. Who was telling the stories, and what were the stories trying to tell us. The pictures and hieroglyphs were based on shapes and patterns, items and forms. Their language was reflecting reality, not an abstract tongue. Symbols of living things. Like waves and cranes and owls or crocs and serpents. Marks that mean something when together in the past, and what we can only imagine to ourselves now that we see it from the future. Who created the Rosetta stone? And when did language shift from images to letters?