To my mind, one of the most extraordinary of all man-made structures, made more extraordinary by the fact that the whole site was moved in 1968! Sitting as it does on the shores of the Aswan Dam, its original position is 60 metres lower down the falsely created cliff-face - namely under the water!
The four statues are all of Ramses II (1304 - 1237 BC) - all facing into Nubia (Africa) - the theory being that his unblinking stare welcomed all that entered Egypt from the south. Depicted on a much smaller scale are the statues of his subjects, including his first wife (Nefertiti), his mother, the royal family - even the sun-god Re-Herakte, to whom the temple is nominally dedicated - are smaller!
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Directions: 280kms to the south of Aswan, the main way is go - organised trip from Aswan. These trips out usually start before sunrise - you get the delights of an incredibly flat desert for this, and the return is made before the heat of the day sets in.
on Aug 27, 2003
