The Sun Festival at Abu Simbel

Sun Festival at Abu Simbel

Complete more than 3000 years, one of the extended  miracles  has  been  taking  place  at  the Great Abu Simbel Temple with the shafts of the sun cutting into the sanctuary and informative the sculptures of pharaoh Ramses II and 2 statues of Ra-Hurakhti, God of the Sun, and Amun, God of Thebes on the back wall. Only the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, remains in the dark. This phenomenon takes place in 2 large days of the year; on the dates that  mark  the  pharaoh’s  birthday  (October  21) and his investiture day in February 21.

Through that two days, thousands of tourists from all over the world come to Abu Simbel to watch this phenomenon during the the Sun Festival. The festival plan includes music performance and story about the era after Ramses II ascended the  throne  of  Egypt  in  nine  languages; Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Deutsch, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese.

The Great Abu Simbel Temple

Great Abu Simbel Temple

Façade of the Great Abu Simbel Temple is about 33 metres high and 38 meters wide. It was cut  63  meters  secret  into  the  rocks.  Four  colossal 20 metre statues of Ramses II, embodying the most important gods, decorate the façade of the Temple. Though large, the sculptors were creative in sculpture the Pharaoh’s pretty face and his  spiritual  smile  that  welcomes  the  shining sun. Previous the statues, there is a frame in which the names and titles of King Ramses II, the glorified, the born from the sun and the taken from it,  were  inscribed. Above  the  frame,  there  is  a frieze  of  spiritual  serpents,  followed  by  other frieze of baboons in a row producing their arms in the air and, supposedly, worshipping the rising sun. The catch, in the middle of the façade, is crowned by the statue of God Ra-Hurakhti. Next to and between the legs of the four colossi, there are other statues, no higher than the knees of the Pharaoh,  of  the  family  of  King  Ramses  II  (his mother, his favored chief wife Nefertari, and his sons and daughters).

Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel Area

Abu Simple consists in lower Nubia, south of Egypt, near the Sudanese border, about 280 km southwest of Aswan. It is a deal cliff of reddish sandstone that used to stand excellently on  the  west  bank  of  the  Nile  (and  now  on  the west bank of Lake Nasser behind the High Dam). In this area, Ramses II, the third Pharaoh of the 19th ancient Egyptian dynasty, had 2 temples cut in the rocks. The 2 temples were thought to make Nubia populated and reenforce the Egyptian sovereignty on it as well as to establish the Pharaoh’s  being  a  God  and  record  his victory over the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh.

The 2 temples were full in 1206 BC and  were  thought  among  the  most  proud temples of ancient Egypt. They are visited the Great Abu Simbel Temple and the Small Abu Simbel Temple. With their outstanding architecture, good scales, larger statues and the inscriptions decorating the walls, the two temples are the most spacious and beautiful of all Egyptian rock temples in all times.