Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel

The stretch of the Nile Valley that runs from Aswan, past the great Philae Temple dedicated to the goddess Isis, which was dismantled and reconstructed on Agilikia Island before its former site,Philae Island, was flooded when the old dam was constructed, onwards past the Aswan Dam and the huge manmade lake, Lake Nasser, comes to a halt at Abu Simbel. The town is around 280 kilometres from Aswan and some 100 kilometres from the Sudan border.

Abu Simbel is best known for its two magnificent temples that were originally carved out of solid rock on a mountainside way back in the 13th century BC. An UNESCO World Heritage Site, they are known as the Nubian Monuments and dedicated to the great deities of the day Ra-Horakhty or Horus, Ptah and Amun. They were built to honour the great pharaoh Ramses II and his wife Nefertari.

Such was their historical importance and the glimpse they gave the world of an ancient civilization that when the new dam was built to regulate the waters of the Nile, and create the massive Lake Nasser, the temples were the subject of much discussion. A subsequent rise in water levels threatened to submerge them. A mammoth project to save the temples was conceived and work began in the early 1960s.

UNESCO stepped in with expert knowledge of ancient buildings, as well as funds created largely from international donations, and managed the project to relocate them to a hill high above the water level of the new lake. The project was a lengthy, but highly successful, one.
Massive blocks of rock were cut, dismantled and reassembled over a period of several years.

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