Abu Simbel is a monument to the vanity of a king and to the stubbornness of engineers. About 1264 BC, the pharaoh Ramesses II ordered two temples to be carved into a sandstone cliff on the west bank of the Nile, far south in Nubia, near what was then the border of Egypt. The larger temple, dedicated to Ramesses himself and to the gods Amun and Ra, has a facade with four seated statues of the king, each about twenty metres high, sitting with a calm and slightly smug expression. The smaller temple, dedicated to the goddess Hathor and to his wife Nefertari, has statues of the queen and king standing at the same scale, a rare honour for a royal wife.
In the 1960s, the building of the Aswan High Dam threatened to drown the temples under the rising waters of what would become Lake Nasser. An international campaign led by UNESCO raised money and mobilised engineers, who cut the temples into huge blocks, moved them uphill and reassembled them inside an artificial mountain, a work that took from 1964 to 1968. The joins are invisible, and the temple even keeps its alignment. Twice a year, around the twenty-second of February and October, the rising sun shines along the whole length of the temple and lights up the statues in the inner sanctuary, except for the god of darkness, who stays in shadow.
Reaching Abu Simbel is part of the adventure. The road from Aswan runs for about two hundred and eighty kilometres across the Nubian Desert, a straight, empty ribbon through sand and rock under a hard blue sky, with a few police checkpoints along the way. Rules about travel in convoys and about foreign vehicles change, so check locally before you set out, and make sure your papers are in order. Heat is severe from May to September, and the best months are November to March. Start before dawn, carry plenty of water and fuel, and watch the sand blowing across the road.
The small town has fuel, a few shops and simple hotels, and the lake gives a view toward the Sudanese border. The ride continues to Wadi es-Sebua, where another temple of Ramesses stands on the lake shore, guarded by an avenue of sphinxes. Wind is a constant, and sandstorms can reduce visibility suddenly. Breathe the dry air, drink tea in the café by the lake, and let the size of the statues sink in.