Abu Simbel: the nice temple of Egypt

In his day, Rameses engineered entire cities in Egypt, however nothing would are as amazing because the nice Temple that was stumbled across within the depths of the Egyptian desert close to the border of geographic area, buried beneath centuries of sand. No temple has such ancient, in-built heart and soul, and none have matched its lusty, modern story of discovery and rescue.

The Great Temple was initial graven out of the mountain on the geographical area of the Nile between 1274 and 1244 B.C., king II’s imposing temple was the maximum amount dedicated to the deified Pharaoh himself on the primordial Egyptian gods Ra-Horakhty, Amun and Egyptian deity.


Over the centuries each the Nile and therefore the desert sands observably shifted, and this temple was lost to the globe till 1813, once it had been accidentally rediscovered by Swiss people mortal Jean-Louis Burckhardt.

The four stupendous statues of the Pharaoh fronting the temple were like mammoth sentinels observation over the incoming traffic from the south, doubtless designed as a warning to the strength of the Pharaoh.

When the temple was discovered, nearly two hundred years agone, just one of the heads was utterly showing higher than the sand, consequent head was broken off and, of the remaining 2, solely the crowns can be seen. Enough sand was cleared away in 1817 by Giovanni Belzoni for the temple to be entered.

However, by the tip of the century, plans were afoot to dam the Nile and it looked like the nice Temple was doomed to be buried once more, though on this occasion its coverage was supposed to be water. because the plans for the dyke were caught up, worldwide attention centered on the various valuable and irreplaceable ancient monuments that might be destroyed by the waters of Nasser.
Between 1960 and 1980 the Unesco-sponsored Nubian Rescue Campaign gathered experience and finance from quite fifty countries, and sent Egyptian and foreign anthropology groups to geographic area. Necropolises were excavated, all transportable artefacts and relics were removed to museums and, whereas some temples disappeared below the lake, fourteen were salvaged.

Ten of them, as well as the temple complexes of Philae, Kalabsha and Abu Simbel, were razed stone by stone and fastidiously remodeled on higher ground. Four others were given to the countries that contributed to the rescue effort, as well as the luxurious Temple of Dendur, currently reconstructed within the Metropolitan depository of Art in the big apple.

Perhaps the best action of all was the preservation of the temples at Abu Simbel.

Ancient magnificence and talent met with equally spectacular trendy technology as, at a price of regarding $40 million, Egyptian, Italian, Swedish, German and French anthropology groups cut the temples up into quite 2000 immense blocks, consideration from ten to forty tonnes every, associated reconstructed them within an by artificial means engineered mountain, 210m faraway from the water and 65m beyond the initial website. The temples were fastidiously orientating to face the initial direction, and therefore the landscape of their original atmosphere was create on and round the concrete, dome-shaped mountain.

The project took simply over four years. The temples of Abu Simbel were formally reopened in 1968 whereas the sacred website that they had occupied for quite 3000 years disappeared below Nasser. A plaque to the proper of the temple entrance eloquently describes this achievement: ‘Through this restoration of the past, we've got so helped to create the longer term of group.’

In Oct per annum, the primary rays of the rising sun reach across the Nile, penetrate the temple and move on the hypostyle hall, through the vestibule and into the sanctuary, wherever they illuminate the somewhat mutilated figures of Ra-Horakhty, Rameses and Amun. Ptah, to the left, isn't light. Before the temple was enraptured, this could occur sooner or later earlier.