Nov 05 – Temples of Abu Simbel

This morning we flew out of Aswan to Abu Simbel to see the great temples there.  The flight path took us along Lake Nassar and the lake seemed to go forever.  

We also got a pretty good shot of the Temples of Abu Simbel from the plane.

It is hard to say what was the most impressive part of this site.  There was the huge statuary and the incredible hieroglyphics in the rock carved temples facing Lake Nassar.  The temples were carved out of the roc in the 13^th century BC, built by Ramesses II as temples, not tombs.  And that was very impressive.

But perhaps even more impressive is that, over four years (1964 – 1968) the two temples were cut into 1000+block weighing upwards to 30 tons and then were totally reassembled a few hundred meters away (out of reach of the rising flood waters of Lake Nassar.  It was an incredible, international engineering effort, partially overseen by UNESCO. 

One of the photos attached shows a cross section of the temples.  They built a domed structure over the temple and then constructed an artificial hill over that...and they even cut the rock face from the original cliffs and mounted the blocks around the temples to reconstruct the site from which they were moved.    

Ramesses II Temple

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More Temple of Ramesses II

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      More Temple of Ramesses II Hieroglyphics 

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Video inside Ramesses II Temple
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Temple of Hathor and Nefertari

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More Temple of Hathor and Nefertari
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This is a cross section of the temples.  A domed structure was built over the temples and an artificial hill was constructed over that.  And they even cut the rock face from the original cliffs and mounted the blocks around the temples to reconstruct the site from which they were moved.  

Lake Nassar from the temple site.

We were only at the site about 2 hours and then it was back to the plane for the flight to Cairo.  We were in our hotel by late afternoon.  The rest of the group leaves tomorrow, we are staying a few days…mainly to work.