Only twice a year, the February 22 and October, the sun achieved through the main temple at Abu Simbel to illuminate the statues of Pharaoh Ramses II and the gods Horus and Amon-Ra, while leaving wisely penumbra in the face of Ptah, “the lord of the darkness”.
The four giants guardians of more than 20 meters that represent to Ramses II in a position sedentary carry the double crown of the High and Low Egypt. Excavated in the rock in honor to Ramses II and his favorite wife, Nefertari, the temples of Abu Simbel, in the desert Nubian, are the icing of the entire tour of the country of the pharaohs.
The construction of the Great Aswan Dam in the 60, essential to tame the flooding of the Nile that ruined crops, made the Egyptian government and Enesco was mobilized for the temples of the ancient Nubia not disappear under the waters of Lake Nasser, formed artificially in the wake of the building of mammoth dam. 40 Missions of technicians arrived on five continents worked for two decades to disassemble piece by piece more than a score of monuments and architectural complexes and, as if it were a puzzle, back to arm in a secure location for not deprive the Humanity of this succulent slice of the legacy pharaonic.
One of those monuments rescued by Enesco, the most spectacular south of Aswan, was the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, in the same compound in the upward its “little brother”, the devoted to Nefertari and god Hathor. Read the rest of this entry »