Luxor Temple

This magnificent structure, know in ancient times as the “Harem of the South” is
connected to the Temple of Karnak by a 3Km processional Avenue of Sphinxes, like
Karnak, Luxor’s temple was dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khonusu,
whose statues stood here during the Opet festival.

Even though Luxor Temple was expanded several times throughout the ages, it’s much
more compact and coherent than Karnak, perhaps because its core was built by just one
pharaoh, Amenhotep III. The walls are decorated with some of the finest carvings in
Egypt, protected because much of the temple was buried until 1885. Before excavations,
only the heads of the Ramses II colossi and the tips of the obelisks stuck out above the
pile of debris on which Luxor village was built. The village was removed bit by bit as the
excavations started.

 

Luxor

 

Luxor at night

 

Luxor temple

 

 

Luxor temple (at Night) 

Luxor temple (entrance)

 

Avenue of Sphinxes leading up to Luxor Temple

 

Courtyard of the Luxor Temple

 

The Avenue of Sphinxes leads to the monumental fist pylon built by Ramses II, which
was once fronted by two obelisks and six colosii of the man himself. The pylon is
decorated, as so many other Egyptian temples, with Ramses II’s favorite story the battle
of Qadesh. Beyond the pylon, the large Court of Ramses II is surrounded by two rows of
papyrus-bud columns, interspersed with more statues of the king.

Beyond the second pylon the impressive Processional Colonnade of Amenhotep III, with
huge papyrus columns, was the model for the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. The
craving on the walls was added by Tutankhamun and gives a picture of the Opet
celebration: One wall shows the outward journey, the other the return of the procession.
At the end of colonnade is the temple’s most impressive part, the Great Sun Court, also
built by Amenhotep III, its fine decorations developed over the millennium between the
reigns of Amenhotep and Alexander the Great.

Unfortunately this court has suffered badly from the rising water level and a major
restoration project is underway. Behind a columned portico, used as a chapel by Roman
soldiers, lays the temple’s inner sanctuary, with Alexander the Great’s Sanctuary of
Amun’s Barge and Amenhotep III’s Birth Room, and his nurturing by goddesses. The
bedrock on which this part of the temple was built was believed to be the site where
Amun was born.

Salvage Operation of Abu Simbel Temple

The rescued Nubian temples were moved and re-assembled in new locations: the  temples of Philae on the island of Agilika, near the old Aswan Dam ; the temples of Beit al-Wali,  Kalabsha and the kiosk of Qertassi a few hundred meters south of the High Dam; the temples of Wadi El-Sebuâ, Dakka and Maharraqa, 140 km south of the High Dam; the temples of Amada, Derr and the tomb of  Pennut, 180 km from the High Dam ; and the two temples of Abu Simbel, 270  km  from  the  High  Dam. Four  Nubian  temples  were offered to countries that had provided significant assistance in the salvage operation: the temple of El-Lessiya to Italy; that of Debod to Spain the temple of Taffa to the Netherlands; and the temple of Dendur to the United States. Other monuments were offered to  other  participating countries such as France, Poland, Germany, etc.

Several schemes had been presented to save the temples of Abu Simbel The one which was selected in 1963 had been submitted by a Swedish company called VBB. The work cost nearly 40 million USD. It took one year (August 1965 - July 1966) to cut the two temples into 1042 enormous blocks weighing over 15000 tons. The blocks were then re-assembled around a concrete superstructure, surrounded by a dome to mimic the topography on which the temple was originally located, over 200 m north and 65 m above its original location. The new site was inaugurated on September 22, 1968, but work on the final elements lasted until 1972.

The Great Temple of Abu Simbel was completely carved out of the rock. Its facade, trapezoidal in form to mimic the pylon, is preceded by a terrace decorated with a series of  upright  statues  of  Horus  and Ramses II. The  facade is adorned with four colossal statues carved into the rock representing Ramses II seated and looking eastward. Around the king’s legs are statues of queens, princesses and princes. The facade is  dominated by a row of baboons greeting the rising sun. Above the entrance is a niche containing a statue of hawk-headed god Ra-Horakhty. The entrance leads to a large hall, the ceiling of which rests  on two  rows  of  four  Osirian  pillars. In  this  hall,  the  reliefs  are exceptionally  well  preserved. The eastern reliefs  represent two nerely symmetric scenes of the Pharaoh smiting his  enemies. On the northern wall, one can admire a detailed composition of the famous Battle of Qadesh, in which Ramses II  confronted  the  Hittites in the fifth year of his reign. As for the scenes of the southern wall, they show, from left to right, the king on his chariot attacking an Asian fortress, killing  a  Libyan enemy, and, finally, triumphant, atop his chariot. Off of the grand hall are a series of rooms called « treasure  rooms». Most likely, it was here that the most precious articles of the temple had been stored. The  back door of the hall leads to a room with four pillars. The north and south walls of this room are decorated with scenes of worship of the divine boats. It then leads to a rectangular vestibule containing three sanctuaries. In the middle one, four statues are carved into the rock representing, from left  to  right,  Ptah,  Amon-Ra, Ramses II and Ra-Horakhty. As Amelia Edwards, who visited the site in 1874, noticed for the first time, the three statues on the right are completely illuminated by rays of the sun from the entrance of the temple on October 21 and February 21 every year (Currntly on October 22 and February 22).

The small temple of Abu Simbel is located 150 m to the north of the Great Temple. Its facade, 12 meters high, is decorated  with six  colossi,  each  reaching  nerely 10 meters high: four represent Ramses II and two represent  his royal wife, Nefertari, to whom the temple  is  dedicated.  Statues of  the  royal  couple’s  children  are carved on both sides of their legs : the princes on the king’s side, and the princesses on the queen’s. The entrance leads to a hall with six Hathorian pillars. Its walls are  adorned with scenes of offerings and worship to the deities honored in the  temple. To the west of the hall are three doors  leading to a vestibule from which  the  sanctuary is  accessed.  The latter is decorated on the back wall with a sculpture of the cow goddess Hathor protecting Ramses II.

The temples of Abu Simbel were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979, and they enjoy  special  treatment  in terms of conservation and preservation.  You too can help us to protect these two prestigious historical monuments by respecting these guidelines.

Stages of the transfer of Abu Simbel Temples:

 

View  from  the Nile  of the Small Temple on its  original  site (old site) 

 

In November,  1964, a steel culvert through the sandfill in front  of the Great Temple waserected, to form an  access to the temple rooms

 

 

Dismant'ing  of the Hypostyle  Hall  (Great Temple)

 

 

The originial site after the process of cutting the temple' stones

 

 

-Using saws in the cutting process

 

 

Queen Nefertari as now temporarilyosened from her place at the leg of her royal consort

 

 

The statue of Ramses the Great

 

 

Pharaoh's knees being lifted after being cut loose

 

 

In February 1966 the dismantling of the temples was not far from completion

 

 

On arrival at the Storage Area, every block is carefully  lifted by a gantry crane and moved to its provisional place while  awaiting re-erection

 

 

Pharaoh regains his face

 

 

Behind the re-erected statues of King Ramesse the first arch element of the great dome above the temple rooms is under construction

 

 

Sky view of the Great Temple

 

 

The two Abu Simbel temples as they can now be seen from Lake Nasser on their new sites

 

 

When approaching the Great Temple, the visitor  feels almost overwhelmed by its beauty and grandeur

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