Advertisement
Published: November 11th 2022
Early start today, in the van at the tender hour of 4:30am and off to today's destination: Abu Simbel...must say I really had no idea what to expect, it seemed excessive to drive four hours to a site with a two hour hang and then four hours back to Aswan, boy was I wrong!
The journey started by crossing over the Old (Low) Aswan Dam, arguably one of the most famous dams in the world...built around the turn of the 20th century by the British, it was designed to provide storage of annual floodwater and increase dry season flows for greater irrigation development in the lower Nile...not much to see in the dark but still cool to say I have seen it...
As mentioned the drive took about four hours, and while long it was nice gradually seeing the night turning to dawn as we made our way through mostly barren and rugged desertscapes...arrived to Abu Simbel around 8:30 in the morning, which was perfect because it was already very hot and heading for 40 degrees centigrade, don't think I'd want to be roaming around this site in the heat of the afternoon...Ahmed sorted out our tickets and we
were off and running...
Abu Simbel consists of two massive rock-cut temples originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BCE by the Pharaoh Ramesses II, and serves as a lasting monument to Ramesses himself (the Great Temple) and his chief wife Nefertari (the Small Temple). Impressive does not begin to describe them, making our way from the main gate we looped around the mountain before getting our first glimpse of the temples, with the four massive carvings of Ramesses II coming into view...we spent a bit of time with Ahmed as he gave us some history of the place before turning us loose (guides are not allowed inside the temples so as to avoid overcrowding) and off we went to explore...
Started at the Great Temple, where the entrance was flanked by the four massive statues of Ramesses II sitting on the throne wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt....upon entering there was a long hall with eight enormous statues of Ramesses, with rooms to the left and right adorned with elaborate carvings of his deeds and conquests...passing through a second hall we made our way to the sanctuary where we found rock
cut sculptures of four seated figures: Ra-Horakhty, the deified king Ramesses, and the gods Amun Ra and Ptah. The amazing thing is the temple was aligned in such a way that twice a year the sun would penetrate the temple and light up the statues in the sanctuary, with the exception of the statue of Ptah, a god connected with the realm of the dead, who apparently always remained in the dark.
Cool hang in the Great Temple and we then headed across the site to visit the second temple, the temple of Hathor and Nefertari, also known as the Small Temple...with its entrance flanked by six statues representing Ramesses and Nefertari, this is apparently a rare instance in which the statues of the king and consort are of the same size, traditionally the statues of the queens would never be higher than the knees of the king...similar yet smaller than the great temple, the walls and inner columns were again adorned with carvings depicting the king's many conquests, but also some of the queen playing an instrument called a sistrum, sacred to the goddess Hathor...very cool in its own right, we spent our time exploring the temple before
heading back out into the heat...
Now comes the mind-blowing part: both of these temples have been moved from their original spot! The temples were under threat from the rising levels of the Nile, so between 1964 and 1968 the entire site was carefully cut into large blocks (up to 30 tons, averaging 20 tons), dismantled, lifted and reassembled in a new location 65 metres higher and 200 metres back from the river, in one of the greatest challenges of archaeological engineering in history. We were shown a photo of the Small Temple originally on the edge of Lake Nasser, with the water lapping up at the entrance...and after seeing both temples and the enormity of them I still can't wrap my head around the move....
With the short visit now over it was back in the van and back to Aswan...again uneventful ride, but did manage to see my first mirage! I wasn't completely certain they existed, you see them in films of folks crawling across the desert and mistaking them for pools of water, but I can unequivocally say they really do look like lakes in the middle of the desert, and this coming from a
Mirage!
Very cool...dude just out of an air conditioned van and completely hydrated...lol...I guess the way the heat waves rise from the sand creates this illusion, just glad I didn't learn about them the hard way...
Abu Simbel, incredible site...I was a little dubious as to whether this visit would be worth it due to the length of the drive but I can say without hesitation that it would have been a huge mistake to miss it, one of my favourite temples in Egypt...and again thanks to Wikipedia for filling in some of the details above...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.275s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 36; qc: 150; dbt: 0.2025s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1.6mb
Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Oh man...what have I been thinking thinking?
Having travelled in 16 Provinces in China and planned for and visited as many carved grottoes as I could, I am amazed I have continually avoided Egypt. Wow wow wow. Your pics and descriptions Jeff...are more than enticing!!!