Great and Small Temples of Abu Simbel one of the greatest pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. He ruled for 67 years during the 19th dynasty and spent much of the time trying to secure the borders of the kingdom. During his reign, Ramesses II embarked on an extensive building program throughout the country. Although his capital was in the Nile Delta, he did not neglect the southern border at Nubia, a land very important to the Egyptians because it was a source of gold and many other precious trade goods. He therefore built several grand temples there in order to impress upon the Nubians Egypt’s might and Egyptianize
Egyptian temple from the distorting effect of additional construction. Many temples, known as hypogea, were cut entirely into living rock, as at Abu Simbel, or had rock-cut inner chambers with masonry courtyards and pylons, as at Wadi es-Sebua. They used much the same layout as free-standing temples but used excavated chambers rather than buildings as their inner rooms. In some temples, like the mortuary temples at Deir el-Bahari, the processional path ran up a series of terraces rather than sitting on a single level. The Ptolemaic Temple of Kom Ombo was built with two main sanctuaries, producing two parallel axes that run