Temple of Abu Simbel

The oldest Nubian temples date back to the eighteenth dynasty (Buhen, al-Lessiya, Amada, etc.) while the most recent were erected during the Graeco-Roman period. However, of all the Egyptian Pharaohs, it was under Ramses II (thirteenth century BC) that Lower Nubia witnessed its most intensive period of temple construction. He erected seven temples therein : Beit al-Wali, Garf Hussein, Wadi al-Sebuâ, Derr (the only one on the east bank of the Nile), those of Abu Simbel and, finally, Akcha. The successors of this great ruler of the nineteenth dynasty would not build another temple in Nubia for nealy a millennium to come.

Sound and light of Abu Simbel

  

Temples of  Ramesses II and Nefertari

Map of the Great Temple of Ramses II:

1- Terrace.
2- Royal colossi of the Facade-Pylon.
3- Hall with Osirian pillars.
4- Second hall.
5- Northern and southern rooms of Tresor.
6- Vestibule.
7- Lateral rooms.
8- Sanctuary.

 

Plan of the great temple

Temple of Abu Simbel lies 270 km south of Aswan. In addition to the two cave-temples built by Ramses II, the walls of the surrounding hills feature twenty-eight stelae carved into the rock.

During his trip to Nubia, the Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt – also known as Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdallah – was the first Westerner to see « Ebsambal (=Abu Simbel) », on March  22, 1813. After visiting  the  small temple, he wandered a few tens of meters to the south, and discovered the upper part of the colossi of Ramses II of the Great Temple, still buried under the sand. Thereafter, the Italian Giovanni Battista Belzoni and his team managed to enter  the  Great  Temple of  Abu  Simbel  on  Friday, August  1st,  1817,  more than three millennia after its construction.

 

Temple of Abu Simbel

 

Great temple of Abu Simbel

 

Part of Abu Simbel temple

 

Interior of abu simbel

Baboon carvings above the heads of the statues of Ramses

Nefertari with Hathor

 Ramses attacke a Syrian fortress (Abu Simbel)

 Enemies being beaten by the Egyptians (Abu Simbel)

After the construction of the old Aswan Dam (1898-1902) and its subsequent two elevations (1907-1912 and 1929-1934), the water level to the south of Aswan had risen considerably and the temples of Philae had been inundated. The construction of the High Dam (1960-1971), and the huge Lake Nasser which would develop behind it – with an average width of over 10 km, length of 500 km and a total area greater than 6000 km² –  would  result  in  the complete  submersion of  the  monuments  of Nubia  (in  both  Egypt and  Sudan).  It was therefore necessary to act quickly to save these temples before they ultimately dissapeared under the water (that is to say, before 1968 for the site of Abu Simbel). The  Egyptian  authorities  and  international  community reacted  quickly  :  on  March  8,  1960,  the  General  Director of UNESCO issued a solemn appeal, thus inaugurating the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. It would span twenty years.

 

Visitors of Abu Simbel

Pharaoh Meaning

The  kings  of  Egypt  were  not  originally  called  pharaohs  by  the  ancient Egyptians. In the late First Dynasty, the term used was nesu-bit, referring to the king, with the additional idea that the king was a combination of divine and mortal.

The term "pharaoh" for the king of Egypt developed over time, and was also used by the Hebrews and Greeks to describe the Egyptian ruler. Today, we commonly use the term "pharaoh" with reference to the kings of Ancient  Egypt,  including  the  Hyksos  and  Ptolemaic  rulers,  but  usually  not the Persian rulers, although many of them did have a formal Egyptian title manufactured for themselves.

In Ancient Egypt, the term "pharaoh" was not originally a royal title. Translated  literally,  the  earliest  meaning  of  the  Egyptian  word  per-o  was  "great house", that is the palace or residence of the king and his administration. This usage is found as early as 2500 BCE. The term "pharaoh" referred to the ordinances and commands the king issued in his administration, but not to the person of the king himself. In New Kingdom times (sixteenth century BCE), it  began  to  designate  the  king  himself,  rather  like  our  use  of  "The  White House"  to  refer  to  the  American  president  or  "The  Crown"  to  refer  to  the British  monarch.

Thus, at the beginning of the New Kingdom (Eighteenth Dynasty), we find Thutmose III (c. 1504-1450 BCE) referred to as "pharaoh." This is understood to be the earliest instance of the title being transferred to the king himself, and any reference before this period is considered an anachronism.

Note:

The number of hieroglyphic signs gradually grew to over 7000 in total, though not all of them were used on a regular basis (as with many of the words in an English dictionary).  The hieroglyphs were chosen from a wide variety of observed images, for example, people, birds, trees, or buildings.  Some signs represent the sounds of the ancient Egyptian language, but indicate consonants only. No vowels were written out.  Also, it was not an alphabetic system, since one sign could represent a combination of two or more consonants like the gaming-board hieroglyph which stands for the consonants "mn". Egyptologists make the sounds pronounceable by putting an "e" between the consonants, so "mn" is read as men. A vast number of other hieroglyphic signs were not pronounced at all but served to clarify meanings, such as a boat following the sound sign "dpt" which was the word for boat.

Philae Temple

The splendid Philae Temple (temple of Isis), set on an island surrounded by the blue waters of Lake Nasser, is one of Egypt’s most romantic sights, especially as you arrive by boat. For more than 800 years, until AD 550, this temple to Isis and Osiris was one of the most important Egyptian cult centers.

Ptolemaic and Roman rulers, keen to identify them selves with this powerful ancient Egyptian cult, all added their mark, making for an interesting blend of styles. The worship of Isis as the Mother of the Gods eventually spread all over the Roman Empire, and early Coptic art clearly associates the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus with Isis suckling her infant son Horus.

 

 The temple of Isis from Philae 

Originally the temple of Isis was built on the island of Philae facing Bigah Island, which was believed to be one of the burial sites of Osiris. But Bigah was accessible only to priests, so all the religious festivities took place on Philae. With the building of the first Aswan Dam the temple was submerged for half the year. In the 1970s when the High Dam threatened to submerge it completely, UNESCO and the Egyptian Antiquities organizations painstakingly moved the entire complex to nearby Agilkia Island, which had been landscaped to resemble Philae.

 

Philae. Columns

First Pylon and Columnade, Philae

Philae, Trajan's Kiosk

 

 

Trajan's Pavilion

 

 

 

 

Temple hieroglyphs on stone at Philae

 

Boats land near the oldest structure on the island, the Vestibule of Nectanebo I, beyond which lies a large court flanked by two elegant colonnades and the impressive first pylon of the temple of Isis. The small door to the left leads into a 3rd century BC Birth House, whose outside back wall shows some lovely scenes of Isis nursing Horus in the marshes. The main gate with two granite lions, leads to the second pylon, opening up to a Hypostyle Hall. The inner temple lost most of its decoration when it was converted into a church around AD 553, but the Sanctuary still contains Isis’s sacred barque, has a wonderful relief of the gods playing Kiosk of Tranhan, with its superb views across the lake.

Boat trip to Philae Temple:

The boat trip from the marina to Agilkia Island is short, but filled with picturesque scenery.  As  the  boat  ripples  through  the  tranquil  waters  of  the  Nile,  small  waves crash  into  even  smaller  islets  made  up  of  formations  of  titanic  round  rocks  that decorate the path towards the island. Eventually, Philae Temple appears gloriously on the horizon.

Around  the  small  marina  on  Agilkia,  Nubian  merchants  sell  colourful hand-made jewellery,  wooden  Nubian  miniature  dolls  and  animals,  straw  hats  and  pottery pots. Speaking  multiple  languages, merchants  approach  visitors  to present  their  wares.  However, visitors  can  hastily  climb  up  the gradient  to  meet  face  to  face with the temple.

Entering the open-court of pillars, the  temple  is  vast  and  epic. Philae  was  built  during  the Greco-Roman  era  under  the Ptolemaic dynasty.  The temple’s construction  lasted  over  600 years  and  was  dedicated  to worshiping  the  goddess  of motherhood and love, Isis, who was a deity for the Romans in Egypt. Unlike most temples in Egypt, each pillar at Philae in the open-court is topped with a lotus flower, some flowers open while others are closed. This  inconsistency was intentional to mimic and also differentiate between the style of the Pharaohs and that  of  the  Ptolemaic  dynasty.  Ceremonial  processions,  enthroning  or  reaping occasions once took place in this court.

 

Trajan's Kiosk

Moving on to the pylon (the second structure in Egyptian temples), the number of entrances  to  the  temple  indicated  how  many  gods  or  goddesses  to  which  the temple was dedicated. This is why Philae has one gate devoted for Isis. The walls of the pylon have inscriptions of the Ptolemaic kings giving offerings to goddess Isis. The  third  part  of  the  temple  is  a  closed  hall  of  pillars  which  contains  the  room where  Horus,  son  of  Isis  is  said  to  have  been  born.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the inscriptions  on  pillars  of  the  temple  were  a  mixture  of  Pharaonic  and  Greek languages. This leads to the most scared part of the temple, the sanctuary where sacrifices and offerings were kept.

Medinet Hebu

Location of Medinet Hebu:

The  west  bank  at  Luxor  is  one  of  the  most important  archaeological  sites  in the  world. Thebes,  located  opposite  of  today’s  city  of Luxor,  was  the  capital of  Egypt  during  the period of the Middle and New Kingdoms. With the  temples and  palaces  at  Karnak  and  Luxor, and the necropolises of the Valley of the Kings and  the  Valley  of  the  Queens,  Thebes  is  testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height.

Temple of Medinet Hebu:

Medinet Hebu was both a temple and a complex of temples dating from the New Kingdom. The  area  was  one  of  the  earliest  places  within the  Theban  region to  be  associated  with  the worship of Amun. Hatshepsut and Tutmosis III built a small temple to Amun on the site of an the  site  of  an  earlier  structure.  Next  to their temple, Ramesses III built his mortuary temple, Medinet  Hebu’s  most conspicuous  standing monument.  Medinet  Hebu  was  erected  and enclosed with  massive  mud  brick-built  walls and became the focus of the administrative and economic life of the whole of Thebes. The  area  included  storehouses, workshops, administrative offices, and residences of priests and  officials.  The site  was  inhabited  well  into the Middle Ages (9 th  century A.D.). The original temple  underwent  many  alterations  and enlargements  in  the  following  1500 years. These considerably extended its plan by adding a columned hall, two pylons, and a court at the front.

Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III - sky view

 

The temple at Medinet Hebu of Ramesses III at Qurna

 Ramessid columns in the peristyle court

Ceiling decoration in the peristyle hall

Zone of decolourisation in court of mortuary temple of Ramesses III

The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III

The  mortuary  temple  used  to  be  connected with the Nile by a canal, and a landing quay was built outside the enclosure wall. The entrance to the  temple enclosure  was  through  one  of  two fortified  gates,  of  which  only  the  eastern so-called "Pavilion" now remains. South of the last court  stood  the  brick-built palace,  now  badly damaged. Two building phases of the structure can  be recognized.  The  interior  of  the  palace was originally decorated with exquisite faience tiles.  The  "window  of  appearances"  connected the palace with the temple.


The Coptic Fresco of Saint Menas at Medinet Hebu:
Saint Menas has received his due share of attention  in religious literature, both in connection with  incidents  of  his  life  and  the  miracles which  he  performed, and  thus  it  is  surprising  to  find that none of the scenes at Medinet Hebu seem to portray incidents common to the literary record. The fact that such a concordance could not be established in a preliminary analysis has  necessitated  a detailed  study  of  the  documentary  material  concerning  the saint. Earlier studies of Menas have settled  neither the problem of where the saint was born and where he lived, nor the problems regarding the relations between his appearance on objects of art and the material of the literary legends.  The results of an investigation of these questions must  be given before the paintings can be considered in detail.

Ricostruzione dell’affresco di Medinet Hebu