Page 137 - WDT Magazine Egypt

It was hard to believe that this complex was
moved here over 50 years ago. Some 3,000 years
ago, the temples had been carved directly into
sandstone cliffs along the west bank of the Nile.
They remained hidden from the modern world until
1812 when the Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt
found it. The larger temple contains four, 69-foot
statues of a seated pharaoh Ramesses II. The
smaller, believed to have been built for queen
Nefertari, has two 33-foot tall figures of the queen,
along with four more of Ramesses II.
Moving these temples was a miraculous en-
gineering feat. Both were dismantled and rebuilt
about 200 feet up to a higher hill to make way for
the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. The task was
complicated and expensive. Some 3,000 workers
spent five years cutting the temples into pieces
weighing up to 20 tons each, cataloging them and
re-assembling the structures in a new location.
Before we entered the temples, our guide gath-
ered us around a shaded bench at the far end of
the complex t told the story of Abu Simbel using a
binder with illustrations and let us know there was
no photography allowed inside them. When Ron
complained, he fessed up that you had to purchase
a photo pass with your ticket and volunteered to
make the one-mile-plus trip to get it for us and oth-
ers in our group.

It’s well over 110 degrees as we
walked the half mile to the temple
complex.

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