Author: Mohammed Eldeeb

About the Obelisk That Isn’t Finished

The Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan is the biggest Obelisk in the ancient world and the biggest in Egypt. The Greek word “obelisks” is where the word “obelisk” comes from. The Egyptians used tools to cut the blocks into the shape of wooden wedges, which they then put into rectangular holes in the rock. When the wedges were put in water, they grew and broke the stone.

Unfinished Obelisk. The obelisks, like the pyramids, show how skilled the ancient Egyptians were by showing how they cut and moved these big blocks of granite. The obelisks were put together with quartz, basalt, and limestone.

The obelisks were built for the first time during the New Empire. They had been built before, but they were small. The Unfinished Obelisk in Aswan is one of the most interesting obelisks. It is thought to be one of Aswan’s most important sights.

How the unfinished obelisk came to be

Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt from 1490 to 1468 BC as part of the 18th Dynasty, gave the order to build the Unfinished Obelisk (wife of King Thutmosis II).

The Obelisk was made to match the 30-meter-tall, 350-ton Lateran obelisk of Karnak, which was moved to Rome’s Lateran Palace. When the Obelisk was taken apart in granite quarries, cracks were made in the rock so it could be moved.

How the Obelisk Was Put Together

Large columns with four sides and a pyramid shape at the top are called obelisks. The Obelisk is in the quarries, which are in the north of Aswan. The Obelisk is 42 m tall and weighs 1200 tonnes. The Obelisk’s base is 4 m long. Pink granite is used to make it.

Stone balls were used to get rid of the bumps, so the surface was smooth. People think of it as an open-air museum where you can learn how to work with stone and cut huge blocks.

A trip to Aswan’s “Unfinished Obelisk”

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What is Abu Simbel?

Glory is a word that is changed by the Temple of Abu Simbel. It was built by Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) during the time of the new Egyptian empire as a way to honour his wife Nefertari, make his name last forever, and keep his name from being forgotten.

He started to build it in 1264 B.C. and finished it in 1244 B.C. On the west bank of the Nile River, west of Aswan, it was carved into the mountain to show Egypt’s southern neighbours and anyone else who wants to attack Egypt’s borders how strong and cultural Egypt is.

How the Temple of Abu Simbel was Built

The temple is made up of two temples. The first is the great temple of Pharaoh Ramses the Great, which was built to honour the gods Amun, Ptah, and Ra-Hor-Akhty and to remember his victory at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC.

The temple is 30 metres tall, 35 metres long, and has four 20-meter-tall statues of the second Pharaoh Ramses sitting on the front.

Inside the temple, there are three rooms that go on for 56 metres until they reach the end, where there are four statues, one for each god. The rooms are decorated with statues of Ramses the Second, pictures of the gods, and scenes from the battle of Kadesh.

The Sun of the Temple of Abu Simbel Festival

During the festival of the sun, which happens every year on February 22 and October, when the sun’s rays shine into the temple and light up the sanctuary and the faces of the gods to the northeast, the temple gets a lot of attention from the media.

The temple of Nefertari is 100 metres away. It was built for the goddess Hator, who was the goddess of love, joy, and beauty. It has two statues of Nefertari that are 10.5 metres tall and six statues of her husband, King Ramses the Second.

The Temples of Abu Simbel Need Help

In the 1960s of the last century, when the High Dam of Aswan was being built, the whole Temple of Philae complex was in danger of being flooded by Lake Naser. However, thanks to UNESCO, the complex was moved to a new location using a brilliant plan. This was one of the biggest challenges in the history of archaeological engineering.

Tours to the Abu Simbel Temple

[Tour of the Abu Simbel Temple for a day]

The Temple of Abu Simbel is one of the most famous historical sites in the world, and many tourists dream of visiting it. If you want to see this magnificent monument and other archaeological sites, you can look at our vacation packages to Egypt or Egypt Nile cruises to find the best trip for you to Egypt.

Temple of Philae

In Aswan is the Temple of Philae. You can see the beauty of the Nile, the colours of the Nubians, and the temples at many different places. Many of the temples in Aswan were on islands, so when the Nile flooded, the water covered them.

Philae Island is one of Aswan’s most important islands. Because Isis was the goddess of the Island, there were many temples on it that were dedicated to her. During the time of the Ptolemies and the Romans, these temples were built. The Temple of Philae is a well-known temple on the Island.

How the Temple of Philae came to be

The Ptolemies were the ones who built the Temple of Philae. The Temple was built to honour the goddess Isis, who was the goddess of motherhood, healing, and giving birth. Her husband Osiris and son Horus were also honoured there.

The temple is very important because it is one of the few places where the old Egyptian religion stayed alive after Christianity came to Egypt, up until the year 550 A.D. The first Christians turned the temple into a church. There, they broke up and destroyed many of the statues of the old gods.

After the Lower Aswan Dam was built, the water level rose enough to cover the Island of Philae. Then area sank when the High Dam was being built, so it was moved to another island that was higher.

The Temple of Philae was moved.

The Temple is not where it used to be. The Temple was on Philae Island, but it was underwater because of the annual flood, and it stayed that way after the Lower Dam was built.

During the building of the High Dam, the Temple would be flooded and would likely be lost forever. In 1960, UNESCO broke up the Temple’s almost 40,000 stones and moved “the Island of Aguilkia” to where they were. The Temple was moved carefully, stone by stone.

How the Temple of Philae was Built

The temple was built in the style of the new Egyptian empire, but it also had some features from the Greco-Roman period, like the nilometer, which was used to measure the clarity of the Nile River and the level of the water during the annual flood.

At the front is a door that is 18 metres high. Then there are many different columns that lead to different rooms. There is also the Birth House, which is all about how Horus was born.

The walls are painted and are in better shape. The stories about Isis and Osiris are written on the walls. There are also reliefs from the Christian, Roman, and Egyptian times.

Mythology of the Temple: When Osiris married the goddess Isis, his brother Set killed him and cut him into pieces, according to the story.

Then Set gave the pieces of Osiris’s body to everyone in Egypt. Isis’s husband was dead, but she found his body and woke him up. Then Isis gave Seth a place to stay on the Isle of Philae.

Find out about the Temple of Philae.

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High Dam of Aswan

Aswan Egypt’s “Nubia Egypt” is a great city. There are many temples and monuments in Aswan. The Nile River is where most of Egypt’s temples are located. Since ancient times, the Nile has flooded every year, making the land around it good for farming. However, as the flood levels rose, the crops were lost.

Then all of the temples fell down. So, in order to save the temples on the banks of the Nile, a dam had to be built. The High Dam is very important, and not just as a place for tourists to visit. It is also very important to the country as a whole.

How the Aswan High Dam came to be

In 1889, work on the first Aswan Dam, called the Lower Aswan Dam, began. In 1902, the Low Dam was done. The height of the Low Dam was 54 m, but it was later raised in two stages, from 1907 to 1912 and from 1929 to 1933.

In 1946, the Low Dam was about to break, so another dam was built 8 km upstream. During President Gamal Abd El-time Nasser’s in office, work on the new “High Dam of Aswan” began in 1952. At first, the US offered a loan of $270 million, but they took it back in the middle of 1956.

At the height of the Cold War, in 1958, the Soviet Union offered a $1.12 billion loan with 2% interest. In 1970, the building of the High Dam was done.

The Building of the High Dam in Aswan

13 km south of Aswan is where the High Dam is. It is 111 m tall and 3600 m long. It is 980 m wide at the bottom and 40 m wide at the top. Lake Nasser was made when the High Dam was built. It is thought to be the largest man-made lake in the world. Lake Nasser is 500 km long, 16 km wide, and 6 000 m2 in size.

The Aswan High Dam’s Good Points

The High Dam had an effect on the economy. It made a new fishing industry around Lake Nasser. The Dam has 12 generators that are each 174 megawatts. Because of this, it is an important source of hydroelectric power that provides half of Egypt’s electricity needs.

Ecological impact: The building of the Dam will have effects on the balance of the millennium, which will affect the animals, plants, and people’s economy. This is why some animal species went extinct.

Nearly 90,000 Nubians lost their homes when the Nasser Lake flooded after the High Dam was built.

What are the bad things that the Aswan High Dam does?

Because of filtration and evaporation, about 12 to 14 percent of the reservoir’s annual contribution is lost. Also, the reservoir’s storage capacity has gone down because sediments from the Nile River have filled it up.

Another effect on the environment is that when the dam was built, no one thought about how it would affect the wildlife and plants downriver.

There have been a lot of effects, like too much sediment in the water upstream, erosion downriver because the water doesn’t move as fast, the loss of animal species that moved along the river, and the salting of the Nile delta because the salty waters of the Mediterranean Sea seeped into the land from the coast to the mouth.

Also, the economy of the villages and the people who live there has been hurt because farmers have had to use almost a million tonnes of artificial fertilisers to make up for the nutrients that the flood and the sediments it carried, which are polluting the river, no longer give them.

Pesticides are getting into the river and making it dirty. In the same way, the number of fish has gone down, which has also hurt the economy.

Aswan Tours with Egypt via travel

The Unfinished Obelisk and the Temple of Philae are two great places to visit in Aswan that draw a lot of tourists. You can also cruise down the Nile to see the sights of Luxor and Aswan while enjoying the beautiful views of the pure Nile, or you can book one of our Egypt vacation packages to learn more.