Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel (Monday, February 06, 2012)

I posted a picture of the larger façade but it doesn’t begin to make up for the proverbial thousand words. First of all the two monuments were moved 180 feet up and 240 feet back to avoid the on-rushing waters when the dam was built. Second, our group had access to the inside of the dome on which the artificial mountain was built in the temples’ new location. The interior looks like a space station—a perfect dome, around the size of the Pantheon in Rome (no oculus, of course) which serves as the inside of the monument. There are two monuments, about 1,000 feet apart. The Great Temple  has four monumental Ramses II statues (one broken since late antiquity) and the Smaller Temple has two statues of his chief wife, Nefertary and two more of Ramses. Behind the façade of each is a temple with the finest carvings and art that I have seen thus far.

I was reminded today of how I felt on my first trip to South Africa. When I saw my first zebra in the bush, I was tremendously excited; within  three days,  I had seen so many zebras, that they appeared as common as pussy cats. I have seen quite a few temples in my week here and they all started to blur, especially the New Kingdom ones (1500 to 1000 BCE). Then came Abu Simbel, these temples are lions not pussy cats.

A short flight from Abu Simbel to Aswan and a three hour bus ride through desert to Luxor. We are at the Winter Palace Hotel, another bit of choice 19^th century colonial architecture.