The values we are defending

(sequel to the article published in UNS 611)

Abu Simbel and Aswan Dam - the story of the unique international salvage campaign. It is rather surprising that while Abu Simbel is considered to be the most famed monument of its kind in Egypt, it remained practically unknown throughout most of the 19th century.

Ybsambul was already legendary to a degree. On March 22, 1813 Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a Swiss historian known as Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah to the Arabs, landed on the shores of the Nile accompanied by the local guide Saad with the intention of visiting the temple dedicated to Nefertari, the beautiful and beloved wife of the Pharaoh, convinced that Ybsambul had no other ancient attractions to o f f e r. Whereupon he proceeded to climb the sandy slope “…when by chance I took a few too many steps towards the south, any my glance fell on what was still visible of four colossal statues cut into the rock”. The wind, blowing fiercely into the gorge, had pushed and piled up a mass of dozens of meters of sand against the stone giants so that only part of the heads emerged, and Burckhardt was uncertain whether the statues were standing or seated. Abu Simbel, the mythical Ybsambul, had been found. Only a few years later on August 1, 1817 another adventurer, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, managed to free the upper part of the door from the sand and discover the entrance..

After Belzoni’s discovery many travelers faced the discomforts of the Nubian Desert, determined to reach Abu Simbel. All were stuck by the sudden appearance of the gigantic awe-inspiring sculptures that seemed to emerge from the sand for some prodigious and supernatural event. Scholars also arrived ; among the most eminent were: the Italians, Ippolito Rosellini and Salvatore C h e r u b i n i ; the French draftsman, Nestor l’Hôte ; François Champollion, who wrote that this temple alone was worth a trip through the Nubian D e s e r t ; the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who had discovered entire cities such as Tr o y, Mycanae, and Tiryns, and who defined it as “the world’s most powerful work of art”. The temple of Abu Simbel could at last be admired in all its beauty and complexity of concept.

The massive facade of the main temple is dominated by the four seated colossal statues of Ramses. These familiar representations are of Ramses II himself. Each statue, 67 feet high, is seated on a throne and wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Each is taller than the famed Memnon Colossus at Thebes, and all are sculpted directly from the rock face. The thrones are decorated on their sides with Nile gods symbolically uniting Egypt. Burckhardt said of the first face on the left that it “was the most expressive, youthful countenance, approaching nearer to the Grecian model of beauty than that of any ancient Egyptian figure I have s e e n . ”

An ancient earthquake damaged the statues. One is demolished from the waist up. Between the legs and on each of their sides stand smaller statues of members of the royal family. The smaller statues of relatives were p r o b a b l y, for the first southern coloss u s: Queen Nefretari by the left leg, the king’s mother, the great wife of Seti I, Muttuya by his right leg, and Prince Amenhirkhopshef in front. For the second southern colossus, Princess Bent’anta stood by the left leg, Princess Nebettawyby the left, and one unnamed female figure, probably that of a lesser royal wife named Esenofre. Beneath these giant sculptures are carved figures of bound captives. At the top of the pylon, above the cornice, is a row of baboons, who, as Watchers of the Dawn, are shown with their hands raised in adoration of the (rising) sun. The Egyptians believed baboons played a role in helping the sun god Ra defeat the darkness of night and so were believed sacred to the worship of the rising sun.

Penetrating to the heart of the mountain, an enormous hall appears in which eight ten-meter high pillars placed in two tows incorporate the figure of Osiris with the semblance of Ramses. The inner walls depict Ramses’military achievements in a richly decorative relief series based on the long epic poet recounting the Pharaoh’s victorious expedition in Syria, composed by Pentaur, the court-poet. The actual interior of the temple is inside the cliff in the form of a man-made cave cut out of the living rock (called “The Sacred Cave”). It consists of a series of halls and rooms extending back a total of 185 feet from the entrance. The long first hall is 54 feet wide and 58 feet deep and has two rows of Osiris statues of Ramses each 30 feet high. Those on the north side are shown wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, while those on the south wear wearing the Double Crown of Lower Egypt. At the west end of the main hall are three doors, the side ones leading into lateral chambers, and the central one opening into a room with four square pillars.

Sixty-five meters from the entrance portal, in the heart of the mountain, is the sacrarium, the most intimate and secret place in the temple. Here sits the statue of the deified Ramses II, together with the triad of Ptah, Amon Ra and Hamarkhis. Regarding these statues, as early as the late 19^{t
h} c e ntury it was realized that the entire temple was built according to a very precise scheme. Various scholars, first among whom François Champol- lion, had noted what was then called the “miracle of the sun”. Twice a year, at the solstices, 22 February and 22 O c t o b e r, the sun penetrates the entire length of the temple and floods the statues of Amon, Hamarkhis and the pharaon with light. After about five minutes the light disappears, and it is truly remarkable that Ptah is never struck by the rays of the sun, for Ptah is the god of darkness. (Precisely this same effect was apparently also fundamental to the design of the artificial cave of Newgrange in Ireland).

Ramses, however, not only built an edifice for his own eternal glorification, next to the Great Temple he built a much smaller one, barely 10 meters high, dedicated to his wife Nefertari, the favored and most beloved of his consorts. Never before in the history of Egypt had an image of the Pharaoh’s wife appeared next to his, and of equal height, on the front of a temple. The new honour was bestowed on the Great Royal Bride, Nefertari-mery en Mut, the “Beloved of Mut”. For her the Pharaoh had a temple “of fine, solid and white stone” cut into the rock ; for her he had two ten-meter- h i g h statues sculpted portraying her as Hathor with the horns of the sacred c o w, the solar disc and two plumes. An inscription over the entrance reads “Raeses II, he has made a tem ple, excavated in the mountain, of eternal workmanship, for the chief queen Nefertari, beloved of Mu, in Nubia, forever and ever, Nefertari for whose sake the very sun does s h i n e . ”

Three thousand years later the two stone temples of Abu Simbel were to challenge the skill and ingenuity of engineers and technicians the world o v e r. The danger that the temple might be swallowed up by the waters of Lake Nasser became an issue of alarm in early 60s, while the temple became a symbol of the campaign to save the Nubian monuments. Abu Simbel was the most beautiful, the most grandiose, and the most important of them all – but it was also the most difficult to save due to the materials from which it was sculptured, to the site, and to its plan.

Between the 10^th and 12^th of June, 1963, the Egyptian government gave its final approval to the international project (under the auspices of UNESCO and with participation of several other countries) for removal of the entire mass of rock by cutting it into block and recom- posing it on a higher site. We will forgo a detailed description of the complex rescue operations. They were carried out in a frenetic race against time: work began in April of 1964, but by the end of the summer the waters of the artificial lake were rising faster than expected. A few figures: 1,036 blocks having an average weight of thirty tons each were moved in addition to 1,112 others surrounding the temple, and 33 tons of resin for consolidation of the stone – the most remarkable architectural dismantling and reconstruction job ever attempted. The two temples were reassembled 90 meters higher up, exactly as they were before. A simple reconstruction was impossible, however, because the weight of the artificial mountain that was to cover the temple would have crushed it. A solution was found in the addition of two enormous reinforced concrete domes that would bear the weight of the mountain and protect the temples, as under a gigantic bell. The material brought from below would completely cover the done, and the crack would soon be filled with sand. Work was completed on September 22, 1968, barely in time for the waters were already slowly penetrating the enormous cavern, now of a desolating emptiness. The great tock complex above was terminated and, as punctually as ever, the “sun miracle” repeated itself in February of 1969.

Then as three thousand years earlier, the sanctuary and its seated gods were illuminated. Ramses II and his architectural masterpiece, in spite of everything, continue to live.

Afterword: I wanted to finish this article on an optimistic note. One project that recently caught my attention was the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in China. I was reviewing the press when I saw similar headings about the world largest hydroelectric dam being under way. I had a flash of déjà vu. I had seen these same headlines thirty years ago prior to the construction of the Answan Dam. The Three Gorges Dam seemed to be even more gigantic and more unique in its structure. I tried to find more written material on it; apparently, there are already many issues being raised in connection to its construction-- environmental consequences, displacement of thousands of people, human rights issues, together with the threat of the destruction of cultural monuments. What was encouraging for me to discover was that all work has stopped and that the possible devastating consequences are being reexamined. This gives us hope that in the future, before undertaking such projects, scientists and policy makers will need to consider risk factors involved to the environment, the eco-system, the well being of individuals and the eventual destruction of cultural heritages.