Far to the south, not far from the border of Egypt and Sudan, lies one of the greatest monuments surviving from the New Kingdom and its most prominent pharaoh, Ramses II. The magnificent temple complex erected here at Abu Simbel demonstrated the power and supremacy of Egypt over Nubia lying to the south. This became the most extravagant of all of the many building projects the great Pharaoh commissioned over his long life.
BUILDING A TEMPLE
The temple dedicated to Amun, Ra-Horakhty, Ptah and most importantly, to Ramses II, himself, took about twenty years to build. Finished in about the 24th year of Ramses II’s reign, the temple remained an important structure throughout the rest of the days of ancient Egypt. A single entrance into the temple stands flanked by four massive statues of Ramses II on his throne wearing the double crown of Egypt. One of the statues suffered a break with the head and torso ending up at the feet due to an earthquake. Smaller statues stand at the feet of the great king – Nefertari (his chief wife), Mut-Tuy (his mother), his first two sons and first six daughters.
Built directly into a sandstone cliff, the temple displayed Egyptian engineering at its finest. A smaller temple dedicated to Hathor and Nefertari became erected slight downriver from the main site.
The Ramses colossi stood about 66 feet tall, carved expertly even with facial expressions captured. In contrast, the statues of the pharaoh and his queen, Nefertari, standing in front of the smaller temple are about half the size. Inside the main temple, the military exploits of Ramses II enumerated in wall reliefs. He ruled from 1279 until 1213 BC.
Layout
The temple became aligned to take into account solar phenomena. Twice a year – ~22 February (Ramses’ enthronement day) and 22 October (Ramses’ birthday) – the sun pushes into the temple to light up the statues of the gods, though Ptah, god of the Underworld, remains shadowed. Inside you find sanctuaries dedicated to Amun and Ptah deep inside the temple. Entering into the shrine, visitors meet a row of statues representing Ramses II serving as guardians and worshippers of the gods.
Ramses II’s most significant victory over the Hittites at Kadesh inscribed and remembered on the walls, commemorating his victory, but also his power and legacy. Nubians, thusly, warned of the power of Ramses II and their place in world-scheme according to the Egyptians.
Inside the temple, a hypostyle wall lined with eight Osiride statues of the great king stand. It is on the walls of this chamber which the military victories are inscribed. Smaller chambers branch off the main hall with hieroglyphics and painted reliefs showing Ramses worshipping and making offerings to various dieities. These rooms held treasures attached to the temple.
FALSE PYLONS AND BABBLING BABOONS
The façade of the temple is trapezoidal in shape mimicking that of pylons which normally fronted the entrance to Egyptian temples. Atop is a row of baboons greeting the morning sun. Above the entrance is a statue of hawk-headed Ra-Horakhty. A back door to the main hall leads to a room with four pillars. On the north and south walls of this room are scenes of worship of the barque boats. Three sanctuaries lie beyond with the middle room filled with statues carved from the rock representing Ptah, Amun-Ra, Ramses II and Ra-Horakhty. These are the statues – with the exception of Ptah – becoming illuminated on the 22nd of February and October.
The Queen’s Temple
For the small temple, two Ramseses statues and one Nefertari stand on either side of the entrance. Nefertari is shown equal in size to her husband, unusual in ancient Egypt where queens normally were shown much smaller. The connotation, Nefertari reigned as a powerful and influential figure in her own right.
At the feet of the King and Queen statues on the front façade are children. Inside the entrance are six pillars topped with an image of Hathor. The walls here are lined with scenes of worships and offering to the deities honored within the temple.
FORGOTTEN and RECOVERED
Eventually, after the First Millenium BC passed, the temples and their purpose became lost to the mists of time as Egypt’s power waned. Centuries of sand slowly buried both temples. This is how they were seen when re-discovered by Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a Swiss explorer, in 1813. After attempts by others, in 1816, Giovanni Belzoni began to have the entrance to the big temple cleared. A team lead by William Bankes were finally able to enter the temple in 1819. Finally, in 1822, Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion deciphered drawings given him by Jean-Nicolas Huyot becoming the first man in 2,000 years to be able to read hieroglyphics.
arists and photographers
Edward Lear, an English artist, brought back a series of sketches from his travels to Egypt in the 1840s about the same time David Roberts, a Scottish former theater stage artist, brought back to London in 1839 a series of sketches which he turned into watercolor paintings. The first photographs came back in 1850 – Maxime du Camp. The best-known English photographs came from Francis Firth’s three journeys to the middle East between 1856 and 1860.
It was not until early in the 20th century before sand final became removed from the temple. Far from mainstream Egypt, few visitors made it this far upstream.
LAKE NASSER
The Aswan High Dam became President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s answer to Egypt’s population problems hoping to stem the annual floods, provide the nation with hydroelectric power and give agriculture a constant source of irrigation water. The cost was a lake rising the water level at Abu Simbel up to 200 feet. The water would then lead to the degradation of the sandstone works. As the dam completed, the clock ticked until the site’s inundation became fact.
With national fund, funds from UNESCO and the United States, the project to relocate both the main Ramses temple and the smaller one of Nefertari took form. Cofferdams went up around the temples to give excavators more time to remove the ruins. Artificial mounds were built withing which the temples were placed. The temples became cut into 1,036 blocks (the smallest weighing seven tons). Some of the materiel from the cofferdams was reused to build the temple mounds. In total, 300,000 tons of fill was used to cover the temples. Electrical lighting and ventilation systems were added to provide comfort for visitors and protect the interior decorations.
The project lasted from 1963 until 1968. The costs ran to $41.7 million dollars (~$436 million in 2025 dollars) with thousands of workers involved.
VISITING ABU SIMBEL
Costs in 2026 to get into the temple complex was 822 Egyptian pounds. There is an extra fee charged for the light show at night. Most visitors come in from Aswan either by bus or tour cars. The trip takes four hours one way and the highway means there are several police checkpoints en route. The highway is also only open from 0500 until 1700 during the day.
There is an airport just outside the village of Abu Simbel (there are accommodations and food options available). Flights from Aswan go either with charters or Egypt Air. We visited on a charter flight provided by Petroleum Air Services. Both airports at Aswan and Abu Simbel double as airbases for the Egyptian Air Force. Plane bunkers noticeable just off the runways (as they are at Luxor, as well).
Flying into Abu Simbel, if you sit on the correct side of the plane, you get a magnificent air view of the restored temples. Naturally, I sat on the wrong side both coming and going. But our window was smudged enough from the desert dusts that it would not have made much difference anyway.
one if by land and two if by sea
While a lot of visitors do make it all the way down here, the crowds are much easier to manage after a few days walking around the sites of Luxor. One can also travel to Abu Simbel by boat. There are a couple older cruise ships which cover the lake and sites along the upper lake over the better part of a week. Smaller boats give access to even more sites along the way which the larger cruise boats cannot reach due to their draft.
FURTHER
Lake Nasser Adventures | Aswan | Facebook
Steigenberger Omar El Khayam Lake Cruise
Costs are not cheap whichever way you go, but if you have come this far, this is one piece of ancient Egypt not to miss.