Abu Simbel Temples: Ramesses II's Monuments in Nubia

The Abu Simbel temples are two huge temples cut into the cliffs above the Nile in Nubia, in southern Egypt, on the orders of Pharaoh Ramesses II in about 1264-1244 BC. The Great Temple, fronted by four seated colossi of the king, and the Small Temple of Queen Nefertari are among the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt. In the 1960s both were cut into blocks and moved to higher ground to save them from the waters of the Aswan High Dam, in one of the great feats of modern archaeology.

Background: Egypt in Nubia

Nubia, the land along the Nile south of the First Cataract at Aswan, was rich in gold and controlled the trade routes to inner Africa. During the New Kingdom, from about 1550 BC, Egypt conquered Nubia and ruled it through a viceroy known as the King’s Son of Kush. Earlier Nubian states such as the Kingdom of Kush had been powerful rivals, and Egyptian kings built temples there to assert their authority.

Ramesses II, who ruled from about 1279 to 1213 BC, built more temples in Nubia than any other pharaoh, including at Beit el-Wali, Gerf Hussein, Wadi es-Sebua and Derr. Abu Simbel, cut into two sandstone hills on the west bank, was the grandest of them. It stood near the southern frontier and was visible to anyone travelling down the river into Egypt.

Building the temples

The temples are rock-cut: rather than being built from blocks, they were carved into the living cliff, with chambers hollowed out behind the sculpted facades. Work probably began early in Ramesses’ reign, and most scholars date the main period of construction to roughly 1264-1244 BC. The temples seem to have been inaugurated around the king’s 24th regnal year, about 1255 BC, when Nefertari and her daughter Meritamun are shown taking part in the ceremonies.

Soon after completion, an earthquake damaged the Great Temple. The upper body of one of the four colossi, the second from the left, fell to the ground, where its head and torso still lie. Ancient builders repaired other parts of the facade but left this statue as it was.

The two temples

The Great Temple

The facade of the Great Temple is about 33 metres high and 38 metres wide. It is dominated by four seated statues of Ramesses II, each about 20 metres tall, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Smaller figures of the queen, the king’s mother Tuya and several of his children stand by their legs. Above the entrance, the falcon-headed sun god Ra-Horakhty stands in a niche.

Inside, a great hall is lined with eight pillars carved as standing figures of the king in the form of Osiris. Its walls show Ramesses’ military campaigns, above all the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites, with scenes of the Egyptian camp, the chariot fighting and the counting of prisoners. Other reliefs show the king smiting Nubian, Libyan and Syrian enemies.

Beyond a second hall and a vestibule lies the sanctuary, about 60 metres from the entrance. There four seated statues represent Ptah, Amun-Ra, the deified Ramesses II and Ra-Horakhty. The temple was therefore a monument both to the great gods of Egypt and to the king as a living god.

The Small Temple of Nefertari

About 100 metres to the north stands the Small Temple, dedicated to the goddess Hathor and to Ramesses’ principal wife, Nefertari. Its facade carries six standing statues about 10 metres high, four of the king and two of the queen. Unusually, the queen’s statues are the same size as the king’s, a sign of her high status.

Inside, a pillared hall with Hathor-headed pillars leads to a sanctuary where Hathor is shown as a cow emerging from the mountain. A dedication text states that Ramesses made the temple for the Great Royal Wife Nefertari, “for whom the sun shines”.

The solar alignment

The Great Temple is aligned so that twice a year the rising sun shines straight down its axis and into the sanctuary. The light falls on the statues of Amun-Ra, Ramesses and Ra-Horakhty, while Ptah, a god linked with the underworld, stays in shadow.

Today the phenomenon takes place around 22 February and 22 October and draws large crowds. The dates moved by about a day when the temple was relocated. Claims that the original dates marked Ramesses’ birthday and coronation are popular but unsupported by any ancient text.

Rediscovery

After the end of pharaonic rule the temples were gradually buried by drifting sand. In 591 BC Greek, Carian and Phoenician mercenaries serving the pharaoh Psamtik II on a campaign into Nubia carved graffiti on the legs of one colossus. The Greek inscription is among the oldest known examples of Greek writing. It names the commanders of the expedition and shows that foreign soldiers were already a regular part of Egyptian armies in the sixth century BC. Much later, European visitors of the nineteenth century also carved their own names on the stone.

In March 1813 the Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt noticed the heads of the colossi rising above the sand. On 1 August 1817 the Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni and his companions cleared the entrance and became the first modern visitors to enter the Great Temple. Clearance continued through the nineteenth century.

The UNESCO rescue

In the 1950s Egypt decided to build the Aswan High Dam to control the Nile flood and produce electricity. The reservoir behind it, Lake Nasser, would drown much of Lower Nubia, including Abu Simbel and dozens of other temples, tombs and settlements. On 8 March 1960 UNESCO launched an international appeal to save the monuments of Nubia. The new lake also flooded towns and villages, and tens of thousands of Nubians in Egypt and Sudan were resettled away from their ancestral lands, a loss still remembered in Nubian communities today.

The campaign ran for about two decades and involved archaeological surveys along hundreds of kilometres of the valley. Teams from many countries excavated sites before they disappeared, and more than 20 monuments were dismantled and moved, among them the temples of Philae near Aswan, which were rebuilt on a nearby island between 1977 and 1980.

Several plans were proposed for Abu Simbel, including raising the temples whole on hydraulic jacks. The scheme chosen in 1963 was to cut them up and rebuild them on the plateau above. Work began in 1964. A Swedish engineering firm, VBB, prepared the plan, and an international consortium led by the West German company Hochtief carried it out, while a temporary coffer dam held back the rising water.

The cutting itself required great care. The sandstone was soft and fragile, so the stone was strengthened with resin before it was sawn, and the visible faces were cut by hand with fine saws to keep the joints narrow. Each block was numbered, lifted by crane and stored until it could be put back in place on the new site, where the joints were filled with mortar of a matching colour.

The temples and the surrounding cliff faces were sawn into about 1,036 blocks, averaging around 20 tonnes and weighing up to about 30 tonnes. They were reassembled about 65 metres higher and roughly 200 metres back from the river. To recreate the setting, the engineers built two huge concrete domes over the temples and covered them with rock and fill to form artificial hills. The relocation was officially completed on 22 September 1968.

By the numbers

Legacy

The rescue of Abu Simbel became a model for international cooperation in protecting cultural heritage. It helped inspire the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention, and in 1979 the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae were inscribed as a World Heritage Site. Egypt gave several smaller rescued temples to contributing countries, including the Temple of Dendur, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Timeline

• c. 1279 BC: Ramesses II becomes king of Egypt.
• c. 1264-1244 BC: Main period of work on the two temples.
• c. 1255 BC: Probable inauguration of the temples, with Nefertari depicted.
• 591 BC: Mercenaries of Psamtik II carve graffiti on a colossus.
• 1813, March: Johann Ludwig Burckhardt sees the buried facade.
• 1817, 1 August: Giovanni Belzoni enters the Great Temple.
• 1960, 8 March: UNESCO launches its appeal to save the monuments of Nubia.
• 1964-1968: The temples are cut up and rebuilt on higher ground.
• 1979: Abu Simbel becomes part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Abu Simbel displays the power and self-image of Ramesses II at the edge of his empire, combining the worship of the great gods with the cult of the living king. Its relocation showed that the world could act together to save a shared heritage, and it remains one of the most visited and best-known monuments of ancient Egypt.