Abu Simbel
Ancient site
A temple with four giant statues, moved to save it from a lake.
More than 3,200 years ago Pharaoh Ramesses II had a temple cut into a cliff in the far south of Egypt. Four statues of himself, each 20 metres high, sit at the entrance.
In the 1960s a great dam was built on the Nile, and the water behind it would have drowned the temple. So it was sawn into more than a thousand blocks and put together again, 65 metres higher up.
- the statues are high
- 20 m
- higher than it used to stand
- 65 m
- the move was finished
- 1968
- 1
Twice a year the rising sun shines all the way down the corridor and lights the statues at the back.
- 2
The blocks weighed up to 30 tonnes each.
- 3
Sand had almost buried the temple when it was found again in 1813.
Question 1 of 2
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