Word: simbel
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Since 1250 B.C., the seated colossi of Abu Simbel have stared fixedly across the Nile and the Nubian desert toward the rising sun. By 1970, they will continue their vigil from the top of the sandstone cliff that now rises behind them, leaving their ancient site under 200 f of turbid water...
...Nile will start rising next September as construction progresses on the new Aswan High Dam, and by 1968, a lake will cover the Nile valley and the surrounding desert from Aswan to the Sudan. Originally, Abu Simbel seemed doomed to vanish and dissolve beneath the rising water. It has required great engineering imagination and four years of desperate fund raising by UNESCO to assure survival for the temples to Ramses II and his queen, Nefestari...
Ramses built the larger temple in his own honor. The four 65 foot-high colossi hewn from the cliff depict him; the has reliefs that line the chambers burrowing deep into the cliff behind them illustrate his triumphs. The pharaoh built many temples to himself, but only at Abu Simbel did dignity triumph over the vulgarity of profuse ornamentation...
...Simbel's sheet size and its perfect integration with the Nubran landscape gives it both impact and authetic effect. The smaller statues of the facade and the has reliefs inside show a life usually absent from later Egyptian...
...same gigantic dimensions that make Abu Simbel so impressive as a monument make it almost impossible to move. Most of the other monuments threatened by the High Dass have been moved to safety with relatively little trouble and expense. Some will be taken all the way out of Egypt, as rewards by the U.A.R. for archeological aid from other . The stopped-up starch for buried raise that will be hidden permanently by the Nile has been happened only by climate, red tape and a lack of Egyptologist. But Abu Simbel presents a special case...