Egypt
The Great Temple of Abu Simbel
The Great Temple of Abu-Simbal - Moved to avoid being flooded by Lake Nassar, the temple of Ramses is even more spectacular than the Pyramids and Sphinx.
By Alan Hoskins
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ASWAN, Egypt – No visit to Egypt can be complete without seeing the last of the “Seven Ancient Wonders of the World,” the pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx in Cairo. Not seeing them, in fact, would be akin to going to Paris and not looking at the Eiffel Tower or Beijing and seeing the Great Wall of China.
From the first time I started traveling abroad more than 35 years ago, I had longed to see the pyramids and Great Sphinx and they did not disappoint. If anything, they were more than I had envisioned.
What I did not expect was another spectacle out of the past - the Great Temple of Abu Simbel. Located some 400 miles south of Cairo at the southern tip of Lake Nassar in the Nubian desert, it is no less spectacular than the Pyramids and in many ways, even more amazing.
Considered the most beautiful and imaginative edifice of the greatest and most whimsical pharaoh in Egyptian history, Ramses II or Ramses the Great, the Great Temple of Abu Simbel and the adjacent Temple of Hathor were moved in the 1960's in what is considered the greatest dismantling and reconstruction of a monument ever undertaken. But more on that later.
Unlike the pyramids and the Sphinx which are located in Cairo but a few hundred yards from a Pizza Hut and KFC, Abu-Simbel is located in a desolate area of desert requiring a 30-minute plane ride from Aswan.
Bussed from the small and dusty airport on a hot, sunny day, we were still left with a 10-minute stroll. As I rounded the corner from behind the temple and got my first look, I was stunned.
I had anticipated seeing one temple. Instead, there were two. Both were carved into the side of a mountain of rock, one with four statues of the likeness of Ramses seated with his arms on his lap; the other with six figures. Even more overwhelming was the size. People entering and leaving the temples were dwarfed by the enormous figures.
“Oh my gosh, this is fantastic,” said my seatmate, Dee.
Ramses II had the magnificent temples built more than 3,000 years to honor the gods Amon-Ra, Harmakis and Ptahkon. In reality, Abu Simbel was constructed for the greater glory of its egotistic builder, who ranked himself with the gods.
Time, however, took its toll and the temples had all but vanished under mounds of sand for nearly 11 centuries when a Swiss historian, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, literally stumbled on to it March 22, 1813.
"By chance, I took a few steps towards the south and my glance fell on what was still visible of four colossal statues cut into the rock," said Burckhardt. Winds blowing fiercely into the gorge had pushed and piled a mass of dozens of meters of sand against the stone giants so that only part of the heads emerged. When the sand could finally be cleared away in 1817, it revealed the greatest monument of its kind.
The immensity of the temple really hit home as I reached the temple entrance. It’s massive, far larger than I had ever imagined looking at photos.
As I walked between the four colossal statues of Ramses II seated on his throne, I marveled at the workmanship of those craftsman 3,000 years ago. Each statue stood 60 feet in height, the face – stern with a goatee – measured more than 12 feet from ear to ear. None of the statues give an indication of a smile or happiness. Rather, Ramses appears to be gazing out at all the land he once ruled.
Protected by the sand, the statues are in marvelous condition with one exception - the head and trunk of one of the statues was felled by an earthquake and laid at the foot of the façade. “The head and trunk could have been restored but it was decided it should be restored just as the way it was found,” our guide informed us.
Carved out of a single piece of rock 115 feet wide and 95 feet high, the top of the façade also features 22 baboons and smaller statues sculptured between the legs of each colossus representing members of Ramses' royal family including the daughter (and his wife) Bent Anat, his mother, his wife Nefertari, a son and another daughter.
Once inside the temple, I was overwhelmed by eight Osiris pillars, each 30 feet in height and bearing the features of Ramses. Standing on both sides of the pronaos, a vast rectangular hall 55 feet deep and nearly 50 feet wide, the pillars provide a spectacular corridor to a hypostyle hall that features four square pillars painted with images of the pharaoh before various gods. In addition, there are eight minor chambers opening off the sides.
As I slowly passed the pillars, I was struck by the greatness of Egypt. The walls are filled with colorful hieroglyphics celebrating the military glory of Ramses II and I wondered what epic battles might have been fought. Thoughts of the many movies made of that era raced through my mind as I tried to picture what this desert area was like centuries ago.
On the ceiling are paintings of the great vulture of the goddess Nekhbet, protectress of Upper Egypt.
At the back of the temple, 200 feet from the entrance in the heart of the mountain, is the sacrarium, the most intimate and secret place in the temple where a statute of Ramses II sits together with the triad of Ptah, Amon Ra and Hamarkhis.
It is in the sacrarium where twice each year the "Miracle of the Sun" took place. On March 21 and Sept. 21 precisely at 5:58 a.m., a ray of sunlight penetrated the entire length of the temple and flooded the statues of Amon, Hamarkhis and the pharaoh with light. Within a few minutes, the light disappeared but remarkably it never fell on Ptah, the god of darkness.
Not only did Ramses construct a temple for his own glory but he also built the adjacent Temple of Hathor, which he dedicated to his wife Nefertari, although still a reflection of Ramses’ huge ego. The façade of the smaller temple bears four 30-foot statues of himself and just two of the beautiful Nefertari. Inside the simple interior are the walls which tell the story of Nefertari and Ramses in hieroglyphics.
Just the fact that such edifices could be constructed centuries ago is mind-boggling; that the temples could actually be cut into pieces and moved to a new location sets Abu-Simbel apart from all the rest of Egypt’s spectacular treasures.
But had not a move been made, the temples would have been lost forever, swallowed up by the construction of the Great Dam of Aswan to eliminate the flooding of the Nile.
The danger that the temples would disappear beneath the waters of the artificial lake (Lake Nasser) created by the dam had world-wide repercussions. UNESCO immediately set up two commissions to study the problem of salvaging the monuments and ultimately chose a Swedish plan calling for the removal of the overhanging rocky mass, cutting up the temples into pieces and reconstructing them on a plateau above the original level.
With the waters of the Nile rising more rapidly than anticipated, workers cut and moved the stones in a frantic race against time. The monuments were sawed into 1,036 blocks of stone, each weighing an average of 30 tons. In addition, there were another 1,112 pieces cut from surrounding rock.
The first block was moved May 21, 1965. However, architects quickly realized that it was not possible to reconstruct the temple as first planned because the weight of the artificial rock built above it would have caused the temple to crumble.
Hence, two enormous domes of reinforced concrete were built to bear the weight of the mountain and protect the temples as under a gigantic bell. Work was completed on Sept. 22, 1968, just in the nick of time as waters were already penetrating the enormous cavern.
Only the "Miracle of the Sun" was lacking and this occurred punctually in February of 1969. Then, as 3,000 years earlier, the sanctuary and its seated gods were illuminated.
As I headed back to bus and the return flight to Aswan, I stopped and took one more look back, again trying to visualize what I would have seen had I been there 3,000 years ago.
Unlike the pyramids in the heart of modern Cairo, Abu-Simbel had allowed me to take a long step back into time into a vast desert punctuated only by these spectacular temples and the realization that the spirit of Ramses II indeed lives on.
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