The giant temple of Abu Simbel, located on the banks of the Nile River only 40 kilometers north of Egypt's current border with Sudan, was built by Pharaoh Ramses II nearly 1,700 years BC. It is extraordinary both outside and within (where no photos were permitted)--its carvings on every inch of wall space were even more incredible than those in the Luxor Temple or the tombs in the Valley of the Kings (see other website pages). Every camel caravan entering Egypt for centuries passed right by this symbol of Egyptian might and dominance. To get here we drove from Aswan in a pre-dawn two-bus armed convoy (worry over bandits and terrorists is pervasive) for over three hours, viewing an endless and at times sinister desert on both sides of the road....with the exception of two or three small oases, nothing else but fine granular sand stretching to the horizon both East and West.
This magnificent temple would have been submerged under the rising waters of Lake Nasser as the Aswan High Dam's reservoir filled in the 1960s. Under intense time constraints a worldwide team led by UNESCO actually moved the entire temple up a hillside and back around 150 meters so that it remained visible for posterity.
The main temple's entrance, with its four enormous carved stone figures (one destroyed hundreds of years ago, the others in perfect shape)
Janet enjoying the adventure (especially once the mob of tourists departed).
And David enjoying the same scene, doing his clumsy best to "walk like an Egyptian."
Here we are at Abu Simbel! Pretty unbelievable, really....
A good closeup of the temple...
And even closer....!
The bus convoy stopped so we could take photos of sunrise over the Egyptian desert. Literally nothing is growing out there!
The temple entrance from a different perspetive.
One final closeup with Janet underneath.
Selected pages of the website were last updated on April 9/10, 2010. Pages on which these latest changes have been made are indicated with an asterisk * before their name.
