section_path: Building projects and monuments/Abu Simbel
section_name: Abu Simbel
paragraph_text: Abu Simbel
  
  In 1255 BC, Ramesses and his queen Nefertari had traveled into Nubia to inaugurate a new temple, the great Abu Simbel. It is ego cast into stone; the man who built it intended not only to become Egypt's greatest pharaoh, but also one of its deities.
  
  The great temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel was discovered in 1813 by the Swiss Orientalist and traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. An enormous pile of sand almost completely covered the facade and its colossal statues, blocking the entrance for four more years. The Paduan explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni reached the interior on 4 August 1817.