Aswan and Abu Simbel, Egypt

Monday, May 23, 2005:

Lets begin with a little 19th Century poetry:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

PB Shelley --- 1818

OK. Now, at the risk of all of my assorted grade school and university English professors past forming an angry bespectacled mob and placing a literary fatwa on my head (although I think I can take the whole pasty, spindly lot of them), and while it pains me to say it, I am now convinced that Percy Bysshe Shelley got it wrong. Or --- if "wrong" is too strong a way of putting it --- he was at least less than entirely right in one of his most famous works of poetry (and one of my own favorites, which is I why I feel slightly guilty contradicting him here). In the sonnet "Ozymandias," Shelley mocks the monstrous ego of Ramses II, the legendary Pharaoh who ruled from 1279 - 1213 BC and was supposedly the Egyptian ruler to have freed the Israelites from slavery following the wrath of God that Moses called down upon Egypt in the 10 plagues. Ramses II (Ozymandias being the Greek name for him) was not known for having a low opinion of his self-worth and, being rather something of a spiritual predecessor to Donald Trump, was a prodigious builder of enormous monuments to the supreme glory and wonder of himself (though he obviously wasn't the one who was doing the actual building). The ruined collosal statue that inspired Shelley's ironic come-uppance of the pharaoh once stood at the "Ramesseum," Ramses II's funerary temple in Luxor (ancient Thebes). But Ramses II built numerous (numerous) other monuments of his own magnificence and many of them have held up strikingly well over the millenia. The Great Temple of Ramses II, overlooking the shores of the Nile near the town of Abu Simbel, a scant 40 kilometers or so from the Sudanese border, is an awesome creation that rivals the Great Pyramids, if not in size and age, then in ambition, artistry and dramatic effect. Therefore, the line "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" is actually a very plausible and convincing statement when viewing the Temple today. The structure is an unabashed display of might and power and ego that has lost little of its grandeur over 3,200 years. Not only that but a second temple to the god Hathor, built in honor of Ramses' favorite wife, Nefertari (not to be confused with Nefertiti), stands approximately 100 meters away from the temple of her husband; it is fascinating and impressive in its own right, though it was clearly meant to be less impressive than the temple of Ramses. If you want my personal opinion, this site is worth the significant detour from Cairo to visit; it might just be the most impressive ancient Egyptian monument I saw.

The town of Abu Simbel is about 40 kilometers north of the Sudanese border and a 3 1/2 hour drive from Aswan. Because of concerns over militant attacks on tourists (though there haven't been any there), the only way foreigners are allowed to visit Abu Simbel short of flying there (the modest town has an airport to accomodate fly-in/fly-out day-visitors coming from Cairo) is to go by bus or jeep in a caravan escorted by the military. Multiple convoys make the trip from Aswan each day, though it is recommended that you leave very early in the morning so as to make it to the temple before the sun reaches its broiling peak.

We woke up at 3:00 AM. I went up to the rooftop of the hotel and looked out over Aswan's streets, the shadows of spires and moonward bent satellite dishes, the closed market stahls lit up by green and red lights. In the distance a muezzin was already chanting the pre-dawn call to prayer over a broadcast system, the forceful wail echoing over the Nile river from west to east.

A few other people on the excursion came up to the roof and sat quietly, smoking and drinking the hot, sweet tea that one of the hotel staff brough around for us. At 3:45 we went down to the lobby, took a modest boxed breakfast that had been made for us, and boarded a mini-bus driven by a smiling, cheery and unbelievably wide-awake guide. Since he gets up at 3:00 or earlier to make this trip on a regular basis, I decided he could be forgiven his incredible good humor; this must have been the equivalent of about 10 AM for him.

We drove about for another 15 minutes to pick up other passengers at their respective hotels. Then, at about 4 AM, we drove up to a staggering line of massive luxury buses and pulled in behind one of them to idle as more of these monster vehicles fell into position behind us. People got off the bus as it was already quite hot on board. KC and I wandered across the street with some other people to get a look at the still-forming convoy. "I just heard them say we have about 40 buses," said a German man who was staying in our hotel. 40? I had thought we would have 6, 7, maybe 8 mini-buses. Most of these --- all but two of these --- were juggernauts, some with two decks on them. "Yeah, we are lucky," said an English traveller, "in the high season they have up to 200 buses in the caravan." We were in the low season, since most people don't reckon they want to be in Egypt during the sweltering 100-degree-plus summer. (These people are smarter than I am.)

When the circus was finally ready to roll, we got back on the bus and wedged ourselves into our narrow seats (shoulder-to-shoulder, the bus being packed beyond capacity, as legally required in most countries I've been to thus far). Within 15 minutes we had left Aswan behind and crossed over the old Aswan Dam (not the big one) to the west side of the Nile. Some people slept but I couldn't. I saw the sun rise over the desert plains (the Nile was now out of view) and watched the expanse of gold-yellow sand sweep by us on both sides of an otherwise well-built highway. The stray police post punctuated the desolation --- as well as the numerous steel electrical towers that ran much of the length of the road.

I read. I looked out the window. I ate my breakfast of bread with bread, bread and a side of bread. But there was also an assortment of packets --- butter, jam, runny cheese. A little carton of orange juice (actually more like Hi-C) served as dessert.

At about 8 AM we pulled into a dirt parking lot along with the rest of the metallic herd. Crowds spilled off of the buses. A consensus as to the direction of the ticket booths was formed. Off I darted, urging KC on with instructions to overtake the short-shorted, bermuda-shirted mob. No elbows were thrown and we reached the booths well in advance of the majority of the bunch, many of whom seemed to be shuffling obliviously through the parking lot while cocking their heads in all directions as if they would see the temples from where they were currently standing if they looked hard enough.

Egyptian Pounds were paid. Feet moved. Heading down a wide trail, we saw a large rocky hill (or was it a small rocky mountain?) ahead of us. The trail curved around the hill-mountain and, in the distance, we could catch a glimpse of the blue water of the Nile. So, then, this meant that the Great Temple of Ramses II was on the other side of the hill, facing the Nile River. (I knew this because I read about it.) Ok. Lets get this show on the road.

We wound around the circular mountain-hill. As we came up on its Nile-facing side, we caught a glimpse of an enormous head poking up from the rock well above us. Then we saw another enormous head. And another. Then we saw the whole shebang. Look on my works ye mighty, etc..., etc..., yadda yadda.

The Temple of Ramses the II is carved into the side of the rock mountain. The immense, imposing facade above the door to the cavernous temple is clearly meant to shock and awe evil-doers and non-evil-doers alike. Four 60-foot statues of Ramses sit side by side looking out onto the Nile. They are enormous. They are also well-detailed and in an excellent state of preservation, except for one of the four, whose head and torso collapsed a very long time ago. But hey, three out of four isn't bad at all. And then there are the small statues carved there, including that of Horus, the falcon-god, and some of the other deities. Not that any of the gods appear as large as Ramses does. The depictions of his servants and queens are miniscule by comparison, though still larger than life-size. Turning around, you can see the Nile river, a wide and shocking blue set against the bleak dry dust of the rocky desert landscape. In antiquity the statues of the pharaoh gazed out on the waters, signaling the power of the king to those who approached or departed his lands. There are a number of theories as to why there are FOUR statues of Ramses and, basically, without simplifying too much, the best answer seems to be that four was widely considered to be better than three, which was a good bit better than two, which surely beats the hell out of one.

And speaking of beating the hell out of things, there is then the inside of the temple to consider. Step through the portal and gaze upon the thousands of suprisingly detailed and colorful pictures and hieroglyphics on the walls and one message stands out loud and clear to you: Its all about Ramses.

Ramses, Rameses, Ramses! He's drawn all over the place, doing all kinds of king-like, god-like, pharaoh-like things, most of them rather violent. He's kicking Hittite ass and taking Nubian names. He's fighting and smiting like nobody's business. Who took on the wave after wave of the enemy's legions pretty much single-handedly? Ramses. Who's so great they need another half-dozen plus enormous statues of themselves lining the center of the enormous outer chamber of their own temple? Ramses. It really is good to be the king. But only if you can out-do all of the other kings with monuments to your supreme, divine, incredible self, apparently. After all, Ramses was very big on etching out the names of other pharaohs (on statues and in general) and inserting his own name there instead.

The temple includes numerous chambers filled with depictions of Ramses making various offerings to the different Egyptian gods (cat-headed, ibis-headed, baboon-headed, crocodile-headed, falcon-headed, etc...). He is smiling in most of them --- cool, confident, on good speaking terms with the deities, it seems. Why be afraid of the gods when you're the living embodiment of one on earth? The same themes repeat themselves ad infinitum throughout the joint. But its still fascinating --- less tacky than just plain weird. The guy could have used a shrink badly.

The nearby Temple of Hathor, also facing the Nile and dedicated to Ramses' favorite queen, Nefertari, is almost as impressive as Ramses' temple, but not quite. Four of the six statues on the exterior are of RAMSES, while only two are of the queen. However, the queen is actually portrayed as equal in height to Ramses, which was no small concession from the pharaoh. The statues and hieroglyphics inside are perhaps more gracefully designed (and a bit less gaudy and bloody) than those in the Temple of Ramses.

In all we spent about two-and-a-half hours at the site before getting back on the bus and making our way through the desert to Aswan again. The timing wasn't bad as it really was starting to get hot outside and more bus-loads of tourists were arriving by the moment. However, despite the hundreds of visitors on hand at the site, the huge size of the temples made it seem relatively uncrowded. So forty buses? Not bad. But two hundred? Not so sure I would say the same thing.

Two final notes on the Temples at Abu Simbel:

First, though they are over 3,200 years old, they were lost to human memory for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. As the Nile slowly changed course and the sands of the desert shifted over the years, the temples were buried almost completely. The Temple of Ramses II was rediscovered by pure chance in 1813 when the Swiss explorer Jean-Louis Burkhardt stumbled upon it; all that he could see was one of the enormous heads sticking out from the desert sand and the crowns of two other heads.

Second, any visitor to the site has to appreciate the fact that both temples were moved piece by piece in their entirety during the 1960s. It was part of a colossal international effort to save numerous antiquities from the waters of the huge lake (Lake Nasser) that would be formed by the construction of the Aswan Dam, which Egypt direly needed to provide fresh water. The temples were cut into more than 2,000 gigantic blocks weighing from 10 to 40 tons each and reconstructed inside a specially-built mountain (or hill?) 210 meters away from the water and 65 meters higher up than their original sites. Great care was taken to face the temples in the same direction and place them in a nearly-identical landscape. Fourteen other temples in the area were also saved, four of which were donated by Egypt to several nations that had participated in the conservation efforts. Visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York can see one of those: the Temple of Dendur.