Abu Simbel is a historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel (), Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. It is located on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about southwest of Aswan (about by road). Its latitude of 22° 20′ 13″ N (22.3369 °N) is 1.0978°, which are 122 km (75.8 ml), south of the tropic of Cancer.

The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. Their huge external rock relief figures of Ramesses II have become iconic. His wife, Nefertari, and children can be seen in smaller figures by his feet. Sculptures inside the Great Temple commemorate Ramesses II's heroic leadership at the Battle of Kadesh.

The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968 to higher ground to avoid it being submerged by Lake Nasser, the Aswan Dam reservoir. As part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, an artificial hill was made from a domed structure to house the Abu Simbel Temples, under the supervision of a Polish archaeologist, Kazimierz Michałowski, from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology University of Warsaw.

History

Construction

During his reign, Ramesses II embarked on an extensive building program throughout Egypt and Nubia, which Egypt controlled. As a major source of gold and many other precious trade goods, Nubia was of great importance to the Egyptians. He therefore built several grand temples in order to impress upon the Nubians Egypt's might and Egyptianize the people of Nubia. The most prominent temples are the rock-cut temples near the modern village of Abu Simbel, at the Second Nile Cataract, the border between Lower Nubia and Upper Nubia.</blockquote>

In 1815, British politician and explorer William John Bankes, accompanied only by servants and guides, travelled from Cairo up the Nile as far as the Second Cataract. On the way he visited Abu Simbel, but was unable to enter the Great Temple. He vowed to return with sufficient resources to investigate the site in detail.

In early 1816, the French ex-consul Bernardino Drovetti made an attempt to excavate Abu Simbel, leaving 300 piastres with the local sheikh to pay for digging out the temple entrance, before continuing upriver to Wadi Halfa. Upon his return, the sheikh returned the money to him as the local Nubians had been unable to comprehend what value these small pieces of metal had, and so no work had been undertaken in order to receive them.

thumb| Exterior view of the temples of Abu Simbel and their surroundings in 1820 from Plates illustrative of the researches and operations in Egypt and Nubia by Italian explorer [[Giovanni Belzoni, showing sand partially covering the Great Temple]]

Belzoni opens up the Great Temple

A few months later in early September 1816, the Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni arrived, having heard about the site from Burckhardt. He recorded that the Great Temple presented just ‘one figure of enormous size, with the head and shoulders only projecting out of the sand.’ He was able to convince the sheikh that coins had value and agreed on a price of two piastres a day per man to work at the site. After 22 days’ work, he and his party were able to enter the Great Temple on 1 August 1817.</blockquote>

Bankes documents the interior of the Great Temple

In 1819 Bankes, accompanied by Henry Salt, Henry William Beechey, and Giovanni Finati, returned in a flotilla of four boats to Abu Simbel, to undertake a thorough investigation with the aim of fully documenting the temples, determining the nature of the statues on the facade of the Great Temple, and to locate inscriptions which might date the temples. Among the party that accompanied them were the Italian physician and artist Alessandro Ricci; the young French draughtsman Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds, Jean-Nicolas Huyot, and the naturalist Baron Albert von Sack. Of that time, three weeks were consumed in excavating the whole of the southernmost colossus of Ramesses II down to its feet. After finding graffiti on its feet Bankes uncovered the legs of the second colossus and was rewarded by finding further graffiti. Bankes had hoped to permanently remove the sand and dump it in the Nile but this proved to be impossible with the resources they had, so they simply moved the sand back and held it in place by damping it with large amounts of water. They then covered what they had previously excavated as they moved from one statue to another documenting what they had found. They left the Great Temple partly more exposed than they had found it. Later, after travelling independently, Hyde revisited Abu Simbel from 26 March 1819 until 2 April 1819. He found the entrance to the interior of the Great Temple partially blocked and had to crawl through on his stomach, worried all the time that the sand may fall down again and block it. He found the conditions so exhausting and could only manage a few hours inside each day, with insufficient light available to create drawings. This allowed him to translate a second cartouche as belonging to Thutmose. Among the expedition's members was Alessandro Ricci who had previously worked with Bankes. Supplied with a large sailing boat by Muhammad Ali, they reached Abu Simbel on 26 November 1828.

Two decades after Belzoni's removal of sand to create an entrance to the Great Temple, the Scottish painter David Roberts traveled up the Nile from Cairo and reached Abu Simbel on 9 November 1838. He spent time in the area making detailed sketches before returning downstream on 11 November.

Upon his return to London in 1839, Roberts created detailed watercolours from his sketches. Four watercolours of Abu Simbel were included as lithographs in volumes 4 and 5 of The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia.

<gallery class="center" widths="180" heights="120" classes="center" caption="Illustrations created by David Roberts based upon sketches he made in 1865">

File:Illustration by David Roberts, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 75.jpg|The temples of Abu Simbel

File:Illustration by David Roberts, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 6.jpg|The colossal figures in front of the Great Temple

File:Illustration by David Roberts, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 12.jpg|The interior of Abu Simbel

File:Illustration by David Roberts, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 11.jpg|The inner sanctuary of the Great Temple

</gallery>In 1842 Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and his party visited Abu Simbel and were able to enter the Great Temple. He reported that the exterior northernmost colossi of Ramesses II bore traces of whitewash, having been applied by someone taking a plaster cast of the face.

The first photographs

thumb| Maxime Du Camp, Ibsamboul (Abu Simbel), medial colossus of the speos of Phré, salted paper print from a negative calotype by Blanquart-Evrard process (1850)

In 1849, the writer Maxime Du Camp was commissioned by the French Ministry of Public Instruction to record monuments and inscriptions in the Middle East using the newly developed technology of photography. Accompanied by his friend, the novelist Gustave Flaubert, he spent the years from 1849 to 1851 completing the mission, which Flaubert recorded in journals and letters, later published in English in 1972 as in Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour.

After ascending the Nile as far as the second cataract, they stopped on their return downstream at Abu Simbel, arriving at 9 am on 27 March 1850 and departing on 30 March. After docking, he had his crew begin removing the sand from around the head of the fourth colossus of the Great Temple. He commenced taking photographs the following day, taking three of the facade of the Small Temple on 28 March, and five of the Grand Temple on 29 March, as well as one of the entire complex from the other side of the Nile, and various aspects of the Great Temple. In a number of photographs, Du Camp had his servant and occasional laboratory assistant Louis Sasseti pose to provide scale. Of these, 125 calotypes (including 10 of Abu Simbel) were printed by Blanquart-Evrard and included in a book written by Du Camp upon his return to France called Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie: Dessins photographiques recueillis pendant les annees 1849, 1850, 1851. Published by Gide and Baudry in 1852, it was the first French printed book to be illustrated with photographs and was a great success.

Du Camp was followed by French civil engineer Félix Teynard (1817–1892), who photographed sites along the Nile River in 1851 and 1852. The resulting photographs were published in thirty-two installments of five plates, beginning in 1853 as Égypte et Nubie: sites et monuments les plus intéressants pour l'étude de l'art et de l'histoire. A complete edition was published in London in 1858.

American John Beasley Greene, a Paris-based archaeologist, photographed Abu Simbel in 1854.

thumb|Photograph of the Great Temple by Francis Frith in 1857

The best known of the early photographers of Egypt was Englishman Francis Frith, who made three journeys to Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land between 1856 and 1860, first photographing Abu Simbel in 1857.

Other 19th century photographers of Abu Simbel included Pascal Sébah and Antonio Beato.

Visit of Amelia Edwards

thumb|Abu Simbel at the time of Amelia Edwards visit in 1874, as published in A Thousand Miles up the Nile

In the winter of 1873–1874 Amelia Edwards, accompanied by her friend Lucy Renshaw and their lady's maid Jenny Lane, were among a party of 25 who journeyed southwards down the Nile from Cairo in a hired dahabiyeh (manned houseboat). Edwards later published her account of the journey in the bestselling A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877). Lane also left behind a journal describing their adventures.

While in Cairo, Edwards had made the acquaintance of diarist Marianne Brocklehurst and her companion Mary Booth who ended up accompanying them on another dahabiyeh. Brocklehurst's own travel diary of the voyage was published in 2005. Throughout their respective travels Brocklehurst and Edwards competed with each other in the illegal removal of Egyptian antiquities.

Edwards' party ultimately reached Abu Simbel in moonlight on the evening of 31 January 1874, departing down river on 18 February after a four-day excursion to Wadi Halfa.

On 16 February, a member of Edward's party, the painter Andrew McCallum discovered what was originally called the South Chapel, but which is now known as the Chapel of Thoth.

In 1874, Thomas Cook instituted a steamer service that operated between Aswan and Wadi Halfa, passing Abu Simbel. The 1892 Baedeker travel guide reported that "Cook's tourist-steamers usually reach Abu-Simbel in the evening of the third day, in time to permit of a visit to the temples before night. Next morning they proceed to Wadi Halfah. On the return-voyage they again spend the night at Abu-Simbel, starting next morning at 9 or 10 o'clock.”

Protecting the great temple

In December 1892, the Egyptian Department of Public Works identified that there were insecure amounts of rock overhanging the façade of the Great Temple which, if they fell, would badly damage the colossi below.

At the insistence of civil engineer Sir William Willcocks, a request was made to Army Headquarters for the Royal Engineers to undertake an operation to preserve the Great Temple. In response, a 12-men detachment of the 24th (Fortress) Company under the command of Lieutenant James Henry L'Estrange Johnstone, arrived at Abu Simbel by the gunboat El Teb on 6 February 1893. Arrangements were made for the engineers to be billeted on site in one of Thomas Cook's Post Boats. The engineers also cleared away debris which had piled up in front of the entrance to the Chapel of Thoth.

The sand was disposed of down the slope in front of the temples so as to form a wide platform, which was held in place by a retaining wall along the riverbank.

Relocation

In 1959, an international donations campaign to save the monuments of Nubia began: the southernmost relics of this ancient civilization were under threat from the rising waters of the Nile that were about to result from the construction of the Aswan High Dam. The resulting lake would raise the water level at Abu Simbel by up to . Once submerged the water would cause the sandstone from which they were constructed to lose its strength and durability. Visitors would then have looked at the engulfed temples from curved observation galleries on three levels. He envisaged that in time the dam would be outdated by atomic power and the water level lowered, restoring the temples to their original state. As they considered that raising the temples ignored the effect of erosion of the sandstone by desert winds, the idea was taken up and turned into a proposal by architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew, working with civil engineer Ove Arup. Unfortunately, the proposal proved unfeasible: as sandstone is porous, the water would eventually cause the temples to crumble.

Another scheme proposed by an American construction executive was to construct concrete barges under the temples and then allow the rising lake water to raise them. high ongoing operating costs, and the belief that the temples would slowly be damaged by damp arising from capillary attraction.

The second was from the Italian firm of Italconsult, following an idea by Pierre Gassola. They proposed cutting away the top of the cliff above the temples, before cutting behind them to sever them from the cliff. and as well as its significant cost it would take three years before it would be possible to actually commence raising the temples, despite the reservoir was expected to begin being raised in the autumn of 1964. This proposal was estimated to cost $62 million. Max McCullough a special assistant for educational and cultural affairs in the State Department, who was the American representative on the UNESCO committee stated, "This means that for the first time we have a plan acceptable to everybody and, secondly that we are within striking distance of the money required for the project."

By 14 June 1963 agreement had been also been reached on how to finance the work. was appointed to lead the team of contractors, which was called “Joint Venture Abu Simbel” (JVAS). Walter Jurecha was appointed project manager, with Carl Theodar Mackel in charge of site activities.

VBB led by Karl Fredrick Ward (as the project's head engineer) was retained as the project's consulting engineers and architects. Their involvement was to last for approximately 10 years.

The actual cutting and a reassembly of the temples was entrusted to the Impreglio, who intended to employ marmisti (stone cutters) who had learnt their trade cutting marble in the Carrara quarries to undertake the actual cutting. This material was sourced from the excavations above behind the temples.

Work continued in three 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the it was then found that water was seeping up via the soil under the cofferdam. To prevent it reaching the temples, drilling rigs were bought in to drill 15 deep wells in each of which an underwater pump was installed to remove any seepage. totalling Each block was given a unique identification code (which identified its exact position) and carefully transported on a sand cushion in a slow-moving trailer to one of two temporary holding storage areas with a total area of . were living in the construction village, of whom 1,850 were working on site.

Reassembling the temples

thumb|The statue of Ramses the Great at the Great Temple of Abu Simbel is reassembled after having been moved in 1967 to save it from flooding.

Meanwhile, in January 1966,

Prior to the project, visitors had to bring their own lamps with them to inspect the interiors of the temples. As it was expected that visitor numbers would increase, permanent electric lighting was installed, as well as a mechanical ventilation system hidden in the domes, both for the comfort of visitors and to protect the interior decoration from the effects of temperature and humidity.

On 22 February 1966, members of the team gathered at sunrise to confirm that the statues of Ramesses, Amun, and Ra-Horakhty were illuminated by the sun's rays, 63.1 metres At the time, the relocation was considered one of the greatest challenges of archaeological engineering in history.

The success of the relocation of Abu Simbel helped the United Nations to introduce a convention establishing the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The project had cost $41.7&nbsp;million or 18.5 million Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $&nbsp;million in ), of which half was borne by Egypt and half provided by international contributions from 48 countries. The temple is now open to the public.

Great Temple

thumb|Facade of the Great Temple of Ramesses II after relocation

The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, which took about twenty years to build, was completed around year 24 of the reign of Ramesses the Great (which corresponds to 1265 BC). It was dedicated to the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty, and Ptah, as well as to the deified Ramesses himself. It is generally considered the grandest and most beautiful of the temples commissioned during the reign of Ramesses II, and one of the most beautiful in Egypt.

Entrance

thumb|The collapsed colossus of the Great Temple supposedly fell during an earthquake shortly after construction. On moving the temple, it was decided to leave it as the face is missing.

The single entrance is flanked by four colossal, statues, each representing Ramesses II seated on a throne and wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The statue to the immediate left of the entrance was damaged in an earthquake, causing the head and torso to fall away; these fallen pieces were not restored to the statue during the relocation but placed at the statue's feet in the positions originally found.

Next to Ramesses's legs are a number of other, smaller statues, none higher than the knees of the pharaoh, depicting: his chief wife, Nefertari Meritmut; his queen mother Mut-Tuy; his first two sons, Amun-her-khepeshef and Ramesses B; and his first six daughters: Bintanath, Baketmut, Nefertari, Meritamen, Nebettawy and Isetnofret. <br/>

The entrance doorway itself is surmounted by bas-relief images of the king worshipping the falcon-headed Ra Horakhty, whose statue stands in a large niche. This is compounded by the fact that the temple was relocated from its original setting, so the current alignment may not be as precise as the original one.

The phenomenon was first reported by Amelia Edwards in 1874:

<blockquote>It is fine to see the sunrise on the front of the great temple; but something still finer takes place on certain mornings of the year, in the very heart of the mountain. As the sun comes up above the eastern hill-tops, one long, level, beam strikes through the doorway, pierces the inner darkness like an arrow, penetrates to the sanctuary and falls like fire from heaven upon the altar at the feet of the gods.

No one who has watched for the coming of that shaft of sunlight can doubt that it was a calculated effect and that the excavation was directed at one especial angle in order to produce it. In this way Ra, to whom the temple was dedicated, may be said to have entered in daily and by a direct manifestation of his presence to have approved the sacrifices of his worshipers. </blockquote>

Greek graffito

A graffito inscribed in Greek on the left leg of the colossus seated statue of Ramesses II, on the south side of the entrance to the temple records that:

Kerkis was located near the Fifth Cataract of the Nile "which stood well within the Cushite Kingdom."

Small Temple

thumb|The Small Temple after relocation

thumb|Interior of the Small Temple

The temple of Hathor and Nefertari, also known as the Small Temple, was built about northeast of the temple of Ramesses&nbsp;II and was dedicated to the goddess Hathor and Ramesses&nbsp;II's chief consort, Nefertari. This was in fact the second time in ancient Egyptian history that a temple was dedicated to a queen. The first time, Akhenaten dedicated a temple to his great royal wife, Nefertiti.

|source 2= Weather to Travel for sunshine and rainy days

Transport

Abu Simbel Airport

It is one of the airports in southern Egypt, located 2&nbsp;km from the city of Abu Simbel. At the end of 1964, a committee from the Ministry of Civil Aviation traveled to the Abu Simbel to select a suitable location to serve as an airstrip for Dakota aircraft carrying tourists wishing to visit the Abu Simbel temples. This was necessary because the temples were being relocated to their current location due to concerns about them being submerged by Lake Nasser after the construction of the Aswan High Dam. This airstrip was built in 1969 with a single 2,000-meter runway and an apron that could accommodate two small aircraft. Abu Simbel Airport is currently a domestic airport, but it has the potential to become an international airport in the future.

The temples appear in the 1978 film Death on the Nile based on the book of the same name by Agatha Christie.

The temples also appear in the 2001 film The Mummy Returns as part of the road to Ahm-Shere.

Historic pictures

<gallery class="center" widths="187" heights="175" classes="center" caption="Temple of Ramesses II">

File:Egypt. Thebes to southern border of Egypt. Air view. Abou Simbel showing monuments by river's edge, setting sun reflected in river LOC matpc.17270 (cropped).jpg|Aerial view of Abu Simbel in 1936

File:John Beasly Greene (American, born France - (Ibsamboul. Spéos de Phré) - Google Art Project.jpg|The façade of the Great Temple in 1854 by John Beasley Greene

File:Abu Simble Temples 1905-1907 A.png|Abu Simbel between 1905 and 1907

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9930.jpg|Front view of the Great Temple before 1923

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9505.jpg|Interior of the Great Temple, before cleaning

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9499.jpg|Interior of the Great Temple, after cleaning

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9500.jpg|People standing at the entrance to the Great Temple, sometime before 1923

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9498.jpg|View of the Great Temple from the west, photo credited to William Henry Goodyear, before 1923

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9494 (cropped).jpg|Facade of the Great Temple from before 1923

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9488.jpg|View of the rightmost statue at the Great Temple, partially excavated, with a person (possibly William Henry Goodyear) for scale

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9489.jpg|View of the Great Temple's colossal statues from the right, partially excavated

File:S10 08 Abu Simbel, image 9491.jpg|Colour photo of the Great Temple from the right, partially excavated, from before 1923

File:S10 08 Abu Simbel, image 9487.jpg|The Great Temple from the right, from before 1923

File:International cooperation, Abu Simbel - UNESCO - PHOTO0000003318 0001 (cropped).tiff|Front view of the Great Temple in 1959

</gallery>

<gallery class="center" widths="187px" heights="175px" caption="Temple of Nefertari">

File:John Beasly Greene (American, born France - (Ibsamboul. Spéos d'Hathor, partie gauche de la façade) - Google Art Project.jpg|Earliest photo of Small Temple, 1854 by John Beasley Greene

File:John Beasly Greene (American, born France - (Ibsamboul, Stèle à Droite du Temple d'Hathor) - Google Art Project.jpg|Stele adjacent to Small Temple, 1854 by John Beasley Greene

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9496.jpg|The Small Temple from below and left, before 1923

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9495.jpg|Interior of Nefertari's (queen's) temple at Abu Simbel, with graffiti

File:S10.08 Abu Simbel, image 9504.jpg|The Small Temple in context, before relocation. Goodyear Brooklyn Museum Archives

File:Historic monuments, Nubia - UNESCO - PHOTO0000003297 0001 (cropped).tiff|Front view of the Small Temple in 1959

</gallery>

Temple Relocation

<gallery class="center" widths="187" heights="175" classes="center" caption="International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia">

File:Abu Simbel, Great Temple, 1964.jpg|Front view of the Great Temple before relocation in 1963

File:Nefertari Temple, Abu Simbel, 1964 (1).jpg|Front view of the Small Temple before relocation in 1963

File:Abu Simbel ( 175 miles south of Aswan, left bank).jpg|alt=Geneva architect, Jean Jacquet, a Unesco expert, makes an architectural survey of the Great Temple of Ramesses II (1290–1223 B.C.).|Genevese architect Jean Jacquet, a UNESCO expert, makes an architectural survey of the Great Temple of Ramesses II, in order to determine where to cut the temple in pieces

File:Work in progress in front of the Great Temple.jpg|Preparation of the work in front of the Great Temple on 2 January 1964

File:International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia (page 1 crop).jpg|With the mountain cut away, workers began to dismantle the statues themselves, 1964

File:Eerste blok gelegd voor Tempels van Abu Simbol, Bestanddeelnr 918-7386 (cropped).jpg|Work in progress dismantling of the statues of the Great Temple, 1965

File:Dismantling of the statues of the Great Temple.jpg|Dismantling of the statues of the Great Temple has reached down to its feet, January 1966

File:International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia (Abu Simbel faceless).jpg|The Great Temple being reassembled in 1967

File:Work in progress of the re - erection of the Great Temple on its new site.jpg|Constructing the artificial hill covering the rear of the Great Temple, 1968

File:The reconstruction of the Abu Simbel great and Small Temples was completed in sepember 1968. The Great Temple on its new site.jpg|Front view of the Great Temple after relocation and reconstruction in 1968

File:The reconstruction of the Abu Simbel great and Small Temples was completed in sepember 1968. The Small Temple on its new site.jpg|Front view of the Small Temple after relocation and reconstruction in 1968

File:Lats works on the Great Temple before the inauguration ceremony of its new site.jpg|Workers adding the last touches to mask the joints made during the cutting of the temple, September 1968.

File:Abu - Simbel - Inauguration ceremony to mark the completion of removal and reconstruction of the Abu Simbel Temples on their new site.jpg|René Maheu, Director - General of the UNESCO giving his speech during the ceremony to mark the completion of removal and reconstruction of the Abu Simbel Temples on their new site, 22 September 1968.

File:Abou Simbel (DOI 957).jpg|Aerial view of the hill covering the rear of the Abu Simbel temples in 1969. The smaller of the two temporary holding storage areas used during relocation of the temple can be seen in the background.

</gallery>

Modern pictures

<gallery class="center" widths="187" heights="175" classes="center" caption="Temple of Ramesses II">

File:Abou Simbel 2004.jpg|Aerial view of Abu Simbel in September 2004

File:Abu Simbel Temple May 30 2007.jpg|Facade of the Temple of Ramesses II, photo taken in 2007

File:S F-E-CAMERON EGYPT 2006 FEB 00671.JPG|Close-up of the leftmost statue at the temple of Ramesses II

File:SFEC EGYPT ABUSIMBEL 2006-001.JPG|Central, inset statue of Ra-Horakhty at the Great Temple

File:Abu Simbel - baboons detail.jpg|The carvings of baboons on the cornice above the heads of the statues of Ramesses II at the Great Temple

File:RamsesIIEgypt.jpg|A close-up of one of the colossal statues of Ramesses II wearing the double crown of Lower and Upper Egypt

File:2N9A6519-Pano.jpg|Frieze inside the Great Temple of Abu Simbel

</gallery>

<gallery class="center" widths="187px" heights="175px" caption="Temple of Nefertari">

File:Nefertari Temple Abu Simbel May 30 2007.jpg|Closer view of the Small Temple, 2007

File:SethAndHorusAdoringRamsses crop.jpg|The gods Set (left) and Horus (right) blessing Ramesses II in the Small Temple at Abu Simbel

File:NefertariOfferingToHathor crop.jpg|Nefertari offering sistra to seated goddess Hathor. Frieze inside the Small Temple.

File:RamessesOfferingToPtah crop.jpg|Ramesses offering to seated god Ptah. Frieze inside the Small Temple.

</gallery>

See also

  • Cave temples in Asia
  • List of ancient Egyptian sites, including sites of temples
  • List of archaeoastronomical sites sorted by country
  • List of colossal sculptures in situ

References

Bibliography

  • Abu Simbel at the website of Egypt State Information Service
  • Salvage of Abu Simbel: estimate of cost. The estimate provided to the Egyptian government in 1962.
  • of the first stage of the project for saving Abu Simbel
  • Financial aspects of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia Paper dated 30 November 1962 from the 12th UNESCO General Conference.
  • The World Saves Abu Simbel. A 29 minute long film produced by UNESCO in 1972 on the relocation of Abu Simbel.
  • Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae. A short film produced by UNESCO on Abu Simbel.
  • Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie: dessins photographiques recueillis pendant les années 1849, 1850 et 1851 accompagnés d'un texte explicative. The digitized images of the photographs taken by Maxime Du Camp of Abu Simbel which are housed in The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs collection of the New York Public Library.