Templos de Ramsés II y Nefertari en Abu Simbel. Egipto
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 1.09 mi
- Elevation gain
- 72 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Moderate
- Elevation loss
- 72 ft
- Max elevation
- 975 ft
- TrailRank
- 44
- Min elevation
- 898 ft
- Trail type
- Loop
- Time
- one hour 31 minutes
- Coordinates
- 326
- Uploaded
- May 26, 2022
- Recorded
- June 2021
near Abu Simbel, Aswan (Egypt)
Viewed 1266 times, downloaded 12 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
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Temples of Ramses II and Nefertari at Abu Simbel. Egypt
The temples are part of the Open Air Museum of Nubia and Aswan, a complex that was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 under the name of Monuments of Nubia, from Abu Simbel to File.
The temples were rock-cut (speos) during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II in the 13th century BC. C., as a monument dedicated to said pharaoh and his wife Nefertari, to commemorate his supposed victory in the battle of Kadesh 1274 a. C. and show their power to their Nubian neighbors.
It is dedicated to the worship of Ramses himself and the great deities of Ancient Egypt, Amun, Ra and Ptah. These three gods were highly revered throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. Ra was the head of the Ennead of Heliopolis, Amun the head of the Triad of Thebes, and Ptah the great craftsman god of Memphis. Next to the three, Ramses is represented as the fourth great god of Egypt.
The 19th dynasty attempted to regain Egypt's influence abroad, lost after the religious and political disturbances and turmoil during the reign of Akhenaten of the 18th dynasty who supported the cult of Aten to the detriment of Amun and his influential clergy.
Ramses II, son of Seti I, fought the enemies of the North and the South. His most important battle was that of Kadesh against the Hittites. This battle ended with a peace treaty between both forces. On the walls of Abu Simbel and other Egyptian temples, Ramses boasted that he had won the battle; the king of the Hittites did the same in the temples of his country.
The construction of the temple began approximately in 1284 a. C. and lasted about twenty years, until 1264 a. C. It is one of the six rock-cut hypogea that were built in Nubia during the long period of the reign of Ramses II. The purpose of the temple was to impress the neighbors to the south and strengthen the influence of the Egyptian religion in the region.
Over time, the abandoned temple began to fill with sand. Around the 6th century BC. C., the sand covered the statues of the main temple up to the height of their knees. Abu Simbel was forgotten until, in 1813, the Swiss Johann Ludwig Burckhardt visited it.
Burckhardt told his discovery to Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni, who traveled to the site, taking whatever valuables he could carry. An international fundraising campaign was launched to save the Nubian monuments in 1959, as some of them were in danger of disappearing under water as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam.
The rescue of the Abu Simbel temples was initiated in 1964 by a multinational team of archaeologists, engineers and heavy equipment operators working together under the UNESCO banner.
Between the years 1964 and 1968, the entire enclosure was carefully divided into large blocks of between 20 tons and a maximum of 30 tons each, dismantled, raised and reassembled in a new location 65 meters higher and 200 meters further from the river, in one of the greatest archaeological engineering challenges in history. Some structures submerged in the waters of Lake Nasser were even saved.
The complex is made up of two temples and houses four colossal statues of Ramses II carved into the rock of the façade. The smaller temple is dedicated to Nefertari, the favorite wife of Ramses.
The Great Temple of Abu Simbel, which took about twenty years to build, was completed around year 24 of the reign of Ramses II which corresponds to the year 1265 BC. It was dedicated to the gods Amun, Ra-Horajti and Ptah, as well as to the deified Ramses. It is generally considered one of the most beautiful of all those built during the reign of Ramses II and one of the most monumental in Egypt.
The facade of the temple is 33 meters high by 38 meters wide and is guarded by four seated statues. All the statues represent Ramses II, seated on a throne wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Each of them is about twenty meters high and they are headed by a frieze of twenty-two baboons, worshipers of the sun, who flank the entrance. The statues and the temple were carved out of a rocky hill. The statue to the left of the entrance was broken during an earthquake, leaving only its lower part intact.
Near the feet of the colossi, there are other statues that do not reach the height of the pharaoh's knees. These represent various members of the pharaoh's family, such as his main wife Nefertari, the queen mother Tuya, his first two sons Amenherkhepeshef, Ramses, and his first six daughters Bintanat, Baketmut, Nefertari, Meritamón, Nebtaui and Isetnofret.
The entrance is surmounted by a bas-relief depicting two images of the king worshiping the falcon-headed Ra-Horajti, whose statue stands in a large niche. This god is holding a hieroglyph and a quill in his right hand, with Maat on his left.
The façade is headed by twenty-two baboons, whose arms are outstretched in the air, supposedly worshiping the rising sun. Another remarkable feature of the façade is a stela that records the marriage of Ramses with a daughter of King Hattusili III, a union that sealed the peace between Egypt and the Hittites.
The inner part of the temple has the same layout as most ancient Egyptian temples, with rooms decreasing in size as they approach the sanctuary.
The temple has a complex and quite unusual structure due to its main lateral chambers. The hypostyle hall is 18 meters long and 16.7 meters wide and is supported by eight large Osirid pillars depicting a deified Ramesses linked to the god Osiris, the god of the underworld, to indicate the imperishable nature of the pharaoh.
The colossal statues along the left-hand wall bear the white crown of Upper Egypt, while those on the opposite side bear the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.
The bas-reliefs on the walls of the hypostyle hall present scenes of battles in military campaigns fought during the reign of Ramses II. Many of them refer to the battle of Kadesh, on the Orontes River in present-day Syria, where the pharaoh fought against the Hittites. The most famous relief shows the king in his chariot shooting arrows at his retreating enemies, who are being taken prisoner. Other scenes show Egyptian victories in Libya and Nubia.
After the hypostyle room, you enter a second room, which has four pilasters decorated with scenes of offerings to the gods. There are representations of Ramses and Neferari with the sacred boats of Amun and Ra-Horajti.
This room gives access to a transverse vestibule in the center of which is the entrance to the sanctuary. There, on a black wall, are the rock-cut sculptures of four seated figures: Ra-Horajti, the deified god Ramses, and the gods Amun and Ptah. Ra-Horajti, Amón-Ra and Ptah were the main deities in that period and their cult centers were located in Heliopolis, Thebes and Memphis, respectively.
The temple was built with such an orientation that on October 21 and February 21, 61 days before and 61 days after the winter solstice, the sun's rays penetrate to the sanctuary, located at the back of the temple, and illuminate three of the four seated statues, except for the statue of the god Ptah, the god related to the Duat underworld, which always remained in the shadows.
These dates could correspond to the king's birthday and coronation day, respectively; however, there is no corroborating data, although it is logical to assume that these dates bear some relation to a major event, such as the Heb-sed festival that commemorated the 30th anniversary of the pharaoh's reign.
After the transfer of the temple and due to the displacement of the Tropic of Cancer during the last 3,280 years, it is estimated that the solar incidence has moved one day closer to the solstice, so it should occur on October 22 and February 20, 60 days before and 60 days after the solstice, respectively.
Magnificent work of engineering very well preserved. Not only because of the spectacular nature of its enormous sculptures, but also because of the quality of the inscriptions inside and the incredible ability that allowed, in those times, to control the entry of sunlight on certain dates so that it illuminated certain parts, the triad in a chamber where the god of darkness was left in the dark
The minor temple is located to the north of the main temple and is dedicated to the goddess Hathor and Nefertari, who was the favorite wife of Ramses II and who was of Nubian origin. It is also excavated in the sandstone rock. The façade is decorated with six statues, four of Ramses II and two of Nefertari. They are divided into two groups of three statues on each side of the entrance gate. The ends represent Ramses II and the central ones represent his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari, and are the same size as those of the pharaoh. They all have their left leg forward, in a walking attitude. Between the legs smaller sculptures of princes are represented in the statues of the king and princesses in those of the queen.
All six are of equal size with a size of 10 meters inside niches, something unusual since the statues that represented the pharaoh used to be larger. The entrance leads to a room with six central columns, sculpted with capitals decorated with the head of the goddess Hathor.
The East room contains some scenes showing Ramses and his wife offering sacrifices to the gods. Behind this room is another showing similar scenes. At the bottom of the temple is the sanctuary containing a statue of the goddess Hathor.
Inside we find a hypostyle hall with six columns whose capitals are decorated with the head of the goddess Hathor.
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