Abu Simbel

It is a rock on the western bank of the Nile, in which two famous ancient Egyptian temples were carved during the reign of Ramses II (about 1298-1213 BC). It is located in Nubia, 285 km south of Aswan, near the modern Egyptian-Sudanese border.

A cliff of fine-grained sandstone, 100 m high, is known as a "sacred mountain" in hieroglyphic inscriptions, and it can be supposed that it was fortified by fortifications, and therefore the terrain in the inscriptions is called "Ramzessopolis fortress".

The modern name of Abu Simbel originated from a rock on which, in the place where the river makes a bend to it, an Egyptian man was carved in a bas-relief, in whose pointed apron the Arab sailors saw a semblance of bread; so the image is called "Abu Simbel", the father of bread (from the Arabic sinbel - ear), and then this name was appropriated to the whole group of rocks with their temples.

In Europe, the temple became known in the 1810s, according to the descriptions of Johann Ludwig Burkhardt, Abu Simbel is included in the World Heritage List.