Clockwise from upper left: temple of Ramses II, entrance to temple of Ramses II, temple of Nephertiti, original location of Abu Simbel (Photos by Don Knebel)
Today, in our continuing tour of Egypt, we take a short plane ride from Aswan to Abu Simbel and the monuments created by Pharaoh Ramses II.
Ramses II, called “Ramses the Great” by history, is the pharaoh most often associated with the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. Throughout his 66-year reign, he built many monuments to himself. The most impressive of these is at Abu Simbel, then at the southern edge of his kingdom. Skilled workers literally hollowed out a small mountain to create a multi-room temple honoring Ramses, with the intent of warning outsiders not even to consider invading a kingdom with such a powerful ruler. To make sure everyone got the message, four 65-tall seated statues of Ramses were cut from the mountain at the temple’s entrance. Just inside, in a hall honoring Ramses’ military exploits, eight columns cut from the rock showed Ramses as the god Osiris. A temple to Nephertiti, the favorite of Ramses’ many wives, was carved in a nearby mountain, showing her as the goddess Hathor along with other statues of Ramses.
Today, the water of Lake Nasser, formed in the Nile River by the Aswan High Dam, nearly covers the mountains at Abu Simbel in which Ramses carved his temples. Archaeologists initially proposed giving underwater tours. Fortunately, some clever engineers had a better idea. Beginning in 1964, they cut the temples, statues and surrounding rock into more than 10,000 blocks, some weighing 30 tons. They moved the numbered blocks to a site 200 feet higher and 600 feet further from the Nile and re-assembled them using a metal dome for support, even faithfully recreating a fallen Ramses statue at the entrance of his temple. Forty million 1960s dollars later, the boundaries between the blocks are largely invisible and visitors not knowing the history often don’t notice anything out of place.
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