Abu Simbel temples rooms decreasing in size from the entrance to the sanctuary. The temple is complex in structure and quite unusual because of its many side chambers. The hypostyle hall (sometimes also called a pronaos) is 18 meters long and 16.7 meters wide and is supported by eight huge Osirid pillars depicting the deified Ramses linked to the god Osiris, the god of the Underworld, to indicate the everlasting nature of the pharaoh. The colossal statues along the left-hand wall bear the white crown of Upper Egypt, while those on the opposite side are wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower
Silvio Curto the Abu Simbel temples which were threatened by the building of the Aswan High Dam. Italy received as a gift the small temple of Ellesyia, originally built by Thutmose III for the god Horus, which was rebuilt by Curto in 1970 inside the Museo Egizio in Turin, where it still is.<br> From 1964 to 1989 he taught Egyptology at the University of Turin. He also contributed to various Egyptian collections throughout Italy, such as renovating the one in the Museo Civico Archeologico of Bologna in 1961 and co-founding the Egyptian Museum of Milan in 1972. Curto died on September 24,