We visited several Egyptian temples while we were in Egypt. Seven in all; Phillae, Abu Simbel, Kom Ombo, Edfu, Luxor, Hatshepsut and Carnak. We visited lots of tombs too. The Pyramids at Giza, the step pyramid at Sakkara and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. You'd think that after visiting so many sites that we'd be a bit egyptologied out, suffering from a case of the ABTs. But no, I found every temple we visited amazing.

I'm impressed that these sites are in such great condition after such a long time (many are more than 3000 years old). The walls of each temple are covered in hieroglyphs. I find it fascinating that we can still read the stories of Egypt and know what it might have been like to live in ancient Egypt. It makes me a little worried for our own society when so much of our information is stored digitally. Maybe in three thousand years time people will be finding shiny discs and be clueless to what it all means.

I'm going to try to write a little bit about each temple and the stuff that I found interesting. First up... Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is actually two temples that are located on the bank of Lake Nasser about 300km south of Aswan. You can get there by bus but we caught a (very dodgy) chartered flight to get there from Aswan. Our day went like this: get up way too early in the morning, get on a plane, fly to Abu Simbel, visit the temple for an hour, get back on a plane and fly back to Aswan. It seems like a lot of effort and expense just to visit a temple. Was it worth it? Yes.

The temples were carved out of a mountainside by Pharaoh Ramses II as a monument to himself and his wife queen Nefertari.

The 4 statues on the facade are of Ramses II himself. Each one is slightly different, showing him as he ages from a young pharaoh to an old pharaoh. He lived to be 90! At his feet are little statues of women and other men. These are some of the pharaoh's wives, sons and daughters. They only come up to his knees because they aren't as important as him.

There is a line of baboons at the top of the facade. Apparently baboons make a lot of noise when the sun rises in the morning and so were seen as sun worshippers by the ancient Egyptians. The temple faces the rising sun and is partly devoted to the gods Amun-ra and Ra-Horakhty (Ra is the sun god).

Inside the temple in the sanctuary seated along the back wall are the gods to which the temple is devoted. Ptah (the god of the Underworld), Amun-ra, Ramses II (he made himself a God) and Ra-Horakhty. The temple had a special effect which happened on two days of the year, February 20th and October 20th. These days were the pharaoh's birthday and coronation day. On these days, when the sun rose it would shine through into the temple. In the inner sanctuary, three of the gods were illuminated by the sun: Amun-Ra, Ramses II and Ra-Horakhty. Ptah was kept in darkness because he was the God of the Underworld. Tricky!

The temples are no longer in their original location. Lake Nasser is actually an artificial lake formed when the Aswan Dam was built. The temples in their original location would have been submerged under the waters of Lake Nasser. Before the dam was finished UNESCO relocated the temples. They cut the entire mountain into large blocks and then reassembled it on higher ground. An amazing feat of engineering! Not quite. When they moved it they stuffed up the temple's special feature. Remember how the special days were February 20th and October 20th? It now happens one day later on February 21st and October 21st. And now Ptah is partially illuminated as well. The ancient Egyptians had the maths to be able to create the special effect in 1224 BC and we aren't able to replicate it 3000 years later. Worrying...

More photos on Flickr.

Our visit to Abu Simbel was part of our Road to Jordan tour. We did a 17-day tour with On The Go to Egypt and Jordan and we had a lot of fun. Other entries from this trip include: The Dead Sea.