WATANI International
6 June 2010
Pharaoh Ramses II (1279 – 1223BC) had two temples—one for himself and the second for his beloved wife Nefertari—carved out of solid rock at a site on the west bank of the Nile south of Aswan in the land of Nubia, and known today as Abu Simbel. Long before Ramses II, the site was sacred to Hathor of Absek. The temple built by Ramses, however, was dedicated to the sun gods Amon-Re and Re-Horakhte.
The location of the two temples was related to an Egyptian legend. The lioness Sekhmet had been sent out by Ra to devour the humans for having rebelled against him, but later she became a fierce protectress of the kingdom, and life in general.
Most beautiful
The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, which took about 20 years to build, was completed in about the year 24 of the reign of Ramesses the Great, which corresponds to 1265 BC. It is generally considered the grandest and most beautiful of the temples commissioned during the reign of Ramses II, and one of the most beautiful in Egypt.
Four colossal 20-metre tall statues of the seated pharaoh wearing the double Atef crown of Upper and Lower Egypt dominate the facade of the temple, which is 35 metres wide and is topped by a frieze of 22 baboons, worshippers of the sun, which flank the entrance. The colossal statues were sculptured directly from the rock in which the temple was located before it was moved. The statue to the left of the entrance was damaged in an earthquake, leaving only the lower part of the statue still intact. The head and torso can still be seen at the statue##s feet.
Twice a year
Next to the legs of the colossi are other statues no higher than the knees of the pharaoh. These depict Nefertari, Ramses’s chief wife, and the queen mother, Mut-Tuy; his first two sons Amun-her-khepeshef and Ramses, and his first six daughters, Bintanath, Baketmut, Nefertari, Meritamen, Nebettawy and Isetnofret.
The most remarkable feature of the site is that the temple is precisely oriented so that twice every year, on 21 February and 21 October, the first rays of the morning sun shine down the entire length of the temple-cave to illuminate the back wall of the innermost shrine and the statues of the gods seated there.
With the passage of time the temples were covered by sand dunes, and because of their remote location in southern Egypt, the temples were unknown until their rediscovery in 1813. They were first explored in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni.
International effort
Not only are the two temples at Abu Simbel among the most magnificent monuments in the world, but their removal and reconstruction was a historic event in itself. When the temples were threatened by submersion in Lake Nasser, due to the construction of the High Dam, the Egyptian government secured the support of UNESCO and launched a world wide appeal. The then Minister of Culture Tharwat Okasha took on the mission of contacting international organisations to rescue the monuments of Nubia. The head of the department of antiquities at UNESCO and manager of the Louvre responded by dispatching missions to investigate ways of rescuing the temples. They came to the conclusion that the utmost should be done to rescue the Nubian monuments.
As for Abu Simbel temples, although there was a host of propositions, it was found then that the soundest idea was to dismantle the two temples and raise them 64 metres up the sandstone cliff from where they had been built some 3,000 years ago. Accordingly, 265,000 tons of stone were raised though the period from 1960 to 1964. They were then reassembled, in the exact same relationship to each other and the sun, and covered with an artificial mountain. Most of the joins in the stone have now been filled by antiquity experts, but inside the temples it is still possible to see where the blocks were cut.
Higher level
Six companies (from France, Germany, Sweden and Egypt) were charged with the mission of raising the temples. The process cost USD36 million. The fact that some of the countries involved in the rescue process were not then on good terms with Egypt did not prevent them from cooperating to preserve the country##s heritage.
The process terminated in 1986 and Abu Simbel has become one of the most prominent touristic sites in Egypt. It has a power generator, a water refinery plant, hotels, clubs and public offices. The only difference between the new position and the old position of the temple is that the sun rays now fall on the face of the Pharaoh in the innermost shrine on 22 February and 22 October.
Besides cooperating to rescue Abu Simbel temples, the UNESCO helped with preserving other Nubian monuments including Daraw temple. It played the role of the mediator between the Egyptian and Sudanese governments on the one hand and donor countries on the other. The campaign, finalised in 1980, was greatly successful.
Lately, there were claims about the appearance of cracks on the temples’ artificial mountain. Yet secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities dismissed these allegations as groundless.