Ramses II and Nefertari too!
Abu Simbel, Egypt
June 14, 2013
We woke up early to say goodbye to our friends from New Zealand. We had a light breakfast, finished packing and I spent a few minutes on the sun deck while Bill backed up the photos. We were sad that we did not get to say goodbye to our Indian friends.
Mohammed picked us up at 8:00 and brought us to the airport. He checked us in and we spent some time looking through the shops before boarding our 9:30 flight. We were flying with some young Brits who seem to be having a really good time. The flight left early so we arrived at Abu Simbel before 10:00.
Akmed was our guide who greeted us in the airport and Assim was our driver At Abu Simbel. Akmed told us a bit about the town, we are 45 km from the border Sudan and 7,000 people lived here. The architecture in this town was very unique. The buildings have domes on the roofs with open windows to create a fan effect for cooling purposes. It was the best looking and cleanest place we have been to since we arrived in Egypt.
The temples here have been retreived from the new lake, Nasser, with the aid of the Dutch and $44 milion. The project took place from 1962-1968. They created a man made mountain to house the site of the temple which was originally carved into a mountain. The highest part of the temple was 65 meters tall.
The temples were built by Ramses II during the 13th century BC as a statement and warning to the Nubian people to the south. The god worshipped here was Rahorukhat (Ra and Horace) and sounds like Ra-Hor. In many of the scenes Ramses projects himself as equal to the gods and so it also helped that this temple was so far south to avoid the meddling priests who would take issue with such a thing Incredible Statues.
During the 17th century an Italian discovered this site. Graffiti from 1800's was inside and outside the temple. The colours were preserved because it was filled with sand.
On the outside there are four massive monuments of Ramses II, representing the four corners of the world. One was damaged during earthquake. Over the statues there was a small frieze of baboons that greeted the sun. Around his legs there were small images of Nefertari and children.
Inside the temple were some really great scenes:
Showing Ramses II and the famous battle of Kadish. Two scenes show him defeating Nubians and Hetites. The Battle of Kaddish had 1,000 scenes and it was not a true story. Ramses II had a peace treaty with the Hittites, but he told his people that it was a victorious battle.
The moving chariot scenes on the opposite wall; Ramses II and chariot is shown as animation for the first time
A staff with arms holding another stsff represented the animals he killed
A small chamber showing offerings to Rahorukhat
A larger chamber with more offerings to various gods
Another chamber with two small chambers of offerings, heiroglyphics and cartouches on each side
The second room had a large carving of the solar boat
Ramses was shown as a high priest with his wife on the square pillars
Amun Ra, Rahorukhat and Ramses; Ramses was there in place of Ptah in a couple of scenes
Square pillars instead of round because it was built inside the mountain Nefertari's Temple. Which could also explain why the drwaings were not as skilled
Amun Ra offerings were made by Ramses II to gain favour and show the close relationship he had
Next room had god of fertility, offerings to Amun Ra and Thoth
One really unique feature of this temple was at the back of the temple. It was lit only two days each year, on October 21st and February 21st. The final room had statues of Rahorukhat, Ramses, Amun Ra and Ptah. The sun only hits Rahorukhat, Ramses, Amun Ra. Ptah does not get lit because he was the god of darkness.
Ramses II also built a small temple for Nefertari. It was actually built first, for practice. The theme of this temple was love. She was represented as a goddess in the form of a cow (Hathor).
The first room had the face of woman with cow ears on pillars, Thoth, Isis as lioness and Horace Inside Nefertari's Temple.
In one carving she was holding rattle and a lotus (north). Seth (looks like an anteater) and Horace were shown together to illustrate Ramses' power as a god.
The back narrow room had three small chambers showing offerings, Ramses and Nefertari offering two flowers meaning unity, Isis and Hathor surrounding Nefertari with both crowns, and Hathor in the boat with flowers.
We had lunch at the temple, the local falafel which was not fried and served on pitas. We then started our journey back to Cairo, first back to the airport, then on to Aswan where our luggage was meeting back up with us, bringing on more passengers we made our way to Cairo. Much to our surprise and delight our Indian friends boarded our flight to Cairo. We were so happy to see them and say a proper good-bye!
Hanny was there waiting for us and brought us to our new hotel the Senesta, beautiful lobby, but the rooms, although large, let's just say I'm sure they would have been wonderful when the hotel first opened.
We spent a little bit updating the blogs before having a nice quiet dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in the hotel.
It was off to bed as we have more of Cairo to explore tomorrow!
