Abu Simbel - Monument rescue on a grand scale!
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2008
1
7
Trip End
Mar 26, 2008
Abu Simbel, Egypt
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Good thing itīs only 30 minutes, big shuttle plane
Has extra row of seats by shrinking knee space.
Quickly we are in the presence of the huge monument.
Ramses II, the great egotist:
Temples, statues, hieroglyphs, glorify his stature.
Particularly they show his battle prowess
(Which were not really that great).
Scenes on temple walls try to show his successes:
Bop the vanquished on the head,
Step on their backs, show enemy smaller,
But history books declare his battles a draw!
As with Petra, the statues and temples
Had been hewn from living rock.
The modern challenge to raise them above dam water
Was well met, reconstruction looks natural.
Now Ramses II looks out on a huge lake
Named for Nasser, not Ramses.
Ramses 4000 years of greatness is now reduced.
Modern Egypt has its own heros.
