Abu Simbel

On a cloudless breezy day overlooking Lake Nasser in southern (upper) Egypt, I saw the magnificent temple of Abu Simbel. Our tour guide got us seats in the front of the plane, hustled us through the airport and onto the bus, and floored it to the temple. Since there isn't much else in the city besides the temple and the airport, people pretty much see the temples by the planeload (there are two at the same site). As a result, our guide's shenanigans, which we thought were kind of annoying at first, got us to the temple so that we had it completely to ourselves for a solid 20 minutes. So besides being awestruck by the majestic physical aspects of the temple, we got to appreciate its solemn nobility.

The temple comes with an amazing story. It was constructed in the 13th century BC, carved into a mountainside by the great (and very egotistical) pharaoh Ramesses II. Meant to acknowledge the unification of upper and lower Egypt, commemorate his great victory at the Battle of Kadesh, intimidate the Nubians to the South, and become a lasting monument to himself and to most his beloved wife Nefertari, Abu Simbel took around 20 years to build, and features four statues of the pharaoh, each sitting over 20 meters high. Directly inside the temple sits a striking hypostyle with towering statues and columns, and exploring the several side chambers, particularly in the dusty peace and in contrast to the towering regal facade, produced unbelievable feelings of tranquility. 

Over time, the temples fell into disuse, and eventually became covered by sand dunes. It lay un-rediscovered and buried until 1813, when a Swiss orientalist happened upon the upper frieze. He told an Italian explorer about it, who found it as well, but did not succeed in digging out the entrance until 1817. The story says that it is named "Abu Simbel" after a local boy who showed the explorers where he believed a temple to be, since it had been covered and partially uncovered by the shifting dunes for centuries.

As the high dam in Aswan neared its completion in the late 1950's, an international fund to save Nubian Monuments from being flooded was founded, and from 1964 to 1968, at the cost of nearly 40 million U.S. dollars, the entire site was moved to higher ground, just above the bank of what is modern-day Lake Nasser. In one of the greatest feats of archeological engineering of all time, the two temples (one dedicated to Ramesses himself, and the other to Nefertari), look untouched and unmoved to the untrained eye. Apparently they were moved block by block, but it is difficult to tell that this ever occurred. 

Before I saw Abu Simbel, I had a hard time believing that an hour at any ancient temple would be worth a flight in and an immediate flight out, but the sights of the temples of Ramesses the Great proved their worth tenfold. It left me mystified and curious about the story of Ramesses II, and made a lasting impression of the remarkable feats of the Ancient Egyptians. They had to know that their place in history would be known forever.