Abu Simbel, by Kayley

Here are some carvings that were on the front of the statues .We couldn't take pictures inside the temples.

Here's a reference to how huge the statues were outside Ramses temple.

       We arrived at the Abu Simbel at 7:00 in the morning after a 4 hour drive that started at 3 in the morning.and it gets really hot at 10:00 am. When we walked onto the historical site I noticed that the mountain that the temple is in looks really artificial. Later in the tour, I learned that the temples had been moved from their original places lower on the river bank. Inside the temples, there were lots of carvings and some duplicating Ramses II as a god and offerings made by Ramses to the gods. Ramses liked to have himself look all powerful and some of the scenes are kind of sick and cruel. I think Ramses II was a self-centered jerk.  

          Lake Nasser was created by damming up the Nile and the lake was going to flood the place where the temples lay originally. UNESCO saved the temples from being flooded by moving them 150 meters up the bank. Both temples were built inside an artificial mountain created by cutting up the rock from the original mountain and piecing it back together. The back side of the temples looked especially artificial because everything was really neat and pebbly. The temples looked pieced together and some parts looked a little shabby, but UNSECO had obviously tried to put it back together like they found it.  

A nice black and white photo of the family.

           The four statues of Ramses II at the entrance to the temple were 25 meters tall and he was sitting down! The whole place was obviously pieced together when it was being built and they used concrete to fill in the gaps in the stone. One of the statues in front of Ramsis temple is missing its top half because it got token down by an earthquake. The head of the statue is right in front of the statue and its made to look like it just fell that was a cool effect. There were two temples on the site.  One was for Ramses and the other was for Ramses’s favorite wife Nefertari. Nefertari was one of the 68 wives Ramses had. Ramses incorporated himself in almost all the scenes on the walls in both temples and that makes me think that he is very self-centered.


Some of the carvings on the walls had Ramses as a god and in the front of Nefertari’s temple there was a line of statues and the pattern want like this: Ramses, Nefertari, Ramses, door, Ramses, Nefertari, Ramses. Inside both temples, there are lots of little hall ways and rooms with lots of carving of big offerings and ceremonies. Most of the offerings were being made by Ramses but occasionally by Nefertari. Ramses was in the middle of lots of gods and he looked like a god but he isn’t.  The Inside Nefertari’s temple is a lot like Ramses temple. There were more rooms with different carvings of girl goddesses. Also there were lots of carvings of Ramses about to kill men who were kneeling on the ground. I think that’s a really gross thing to carve on walls for everyone to see. It was also really cruel and makes me not really like Ramses.  
 
The carvings on the temple walls at Abu Simbel were supposed to show how powerful Ramses was, but to me, he seemed like a cruel, self-centered jerk. Ramses was a great conquer and usually the great conquers are jerks. Other than that, the Abu Simbel was a cool temple to go to because Mia and I liked to try to understand the hieroglyphs.