𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧 𝗘𝗙𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗦𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗔𝗕𝗨 𝗦𝗜𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗟

September 22, 1968 was a special day for Egypt and for the whole world: the work of moving the temples of Ramses II in Abu Simbel was completed after 5 years of work in which 2,000 men and the best construction companies in the world took part. world.

It was a race against time to secure the two temples from the reservoir that would have arisen from the construction of the Aswan dam, a race against time with an incredible result, an award for engineering excellence.

In just over three years the two temples of Abu Simbel, weighing 265,000 and 55,000 tons respectively, were moved 280 meters inland and 65 meters higher than their original site, finding shelter in a safe place, away from of a flood of the Nile.

Between the spring of 1964 and the spring of 1965, the first phase of the displacement project started with the construction of a 370-metre long and 25-metre high barrier dam to protect the area from the rising waters of the Nile

The second phase began with the removal of the overhanging peak, while the facades of the temples were protected with cushions of sand to prevent them from being damaged by falling fragments.

It was in this phase that the cutting of the temples into blocks took place, for which some marble cutters from Carrara were called from Italy. The Abu Simbel temples were thus dismantled and the blocks placed in a large storage area of 44 thousand square meters, before being recovered for reassembly.

The third phase began with the reassembly works which lasted over two years, until September 1968. The most delicate role was that assigned to the surveyors, called to verify the perfect positioning of the blocks. Once the reassembly was completed, the works ended with the reconstruction of a surrounding environment that

reproduced the original one perfectly, giving back to the world the exact image of the temples of Abu Simbel and its astronomical phenomena: the perfect astronomical orientation of Abu Simbel, in the original position of the temple, meant that on February 21 and October 21 the sun’s rays penetrated inside, illuminating the statues of the gods Amon-Ra and Ra-Horakhty, as well as that of the deified Rameses II himself.