The anime of Abu Simbel
A brief note on the constructive genius of the ancient Egyptians.
The Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel and the adjoining one, dedicated to his wife Nefertari, personified here as the goddess Hathor, were, in the 1960s, cut into blocks and reassembled, by Italian companies, into the body of an artificial hill, 40 m . above. This was necessary, as for the File of Aswan temple (which, however, was reconstructed on a different island from the original), as a result of the formation of the lake Nasser caused by the Aswan dam. Among other things, since it is unthinkable that the temple of Ramses, explored for the first time by Belzoni in 1817, was built in the middle of the Nubia, totally isolated, who knows how many other sites of archaeological interest have been submerged by this lake that , in addition to having proved quite useless, it creates underground water infiltrations that are threatening the good conservation of the Luxor tombs and prevent fertile silt (the Khemi, which gave its name to ancient Egypt) - also to the crocodiles - of reach the most cultivated areas of the country. On the left wall of the hypostyle hall, entering the temple, there is a glorification bas-relief of Ramses II in the battle of Quadesh. The Pharaoh is depicted on a running cart, surrounded by other smaller carts, while he tends the bow. The absolute modernity of this bas-relief is that, to give the sensation of movement and speed, horses have more hooves than the real, in different positions, as in the cartoon technique of today, according to which, with various successive designs , movement is created. A graphic idea, for the time, absolutely brilliant, repeated also in the depiction of the tension of the Pharaoh's bow.
Another particularity that testifies to how much the Egyptians' co-constructive technique had evolved is that on February 21st, the day on which, at that latitude, the sun is at its zenith (we are almost at the Tropic of Cancer), a ray of sunshine penetrates into the temple, it crosses it in all its length of about 60 meters passing through the different rooms built 'by telescope', until illuminating the statues of Ammon-Ra, Ptah, Ramses II (deified) and of Horus (in the personification of Ra-Harakhte) , placed in the terminal sacellum. Given that this "sancta-sanctorum" had, at the time, the floor covered with electron (an alloy of gold and silver, also used to cover the top of the obelisks), one can imagine what a phantasmagoric effect of light could derive from it. The phenomenon was repeated, then, on October 21st.
The funny thing is that, in the current reconstruction of the temple, despite all our modern technology, the phenomenon is repeated yes. But only on the day following the original dates!
