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Abu Simbel was carved
into a cliff on the banks of Nile as a grand display of the power and
territory of Rameses the Great.
Anyone coming down the Nile from Nubia would
sail beside it. It's grandeur was meant to intimidate and awe. It was a reminder that those who passed beneath the giant
statues were under the
governance of the Pharaoh and subject to his majesty.
In 1964, the Egyptian Government completed building a hydroelectric dam above Aswan to provide power and to control
the flood cycle of the Nile. This dam would create Lake Nasser and
submerge many historic sites. Abu Simbel was one of those
sites.
UNESCO, created a
fund to save the most important of the sites. As a result, Abu
Simbel and the cliff in which it was carved, were carefully cut apart
and reassembled like a giant puzzle on a higher site.
It was one
of the greatest engineering feats of historical conservation ever
achieved, and a fitting tribute to Ramesses the Great, one of Egypt's
most enduring historical figures.
http://i-cias.com/egypt/abu_simbel03.htm
shows a picture of the statues being reconstructed at the new site.
A description of the process of the
reconstruction is detailed in the article of Dr. Zahi A. Hawass in the
Egypt Air Magazine.
http://www.egyptair.com.eg/docs/publicity/story_2_april2001.htm
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