Abu Simbel temples Nefertari. This was in fact the second time in ancient Egyptian history that a temple was dedicated to a queen. The first time, Akhenaten dedicated a temple to his great royal wife, Nefertiti. The rock-cut facade is decorated with two groups of colossi that are separated by the large gateway. The statues, slightly more than ten meters high, are of the king and his queen. On either side of the portal are two statues of the king, wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt (south colossus) and the double crown (north colossus); these are flanked by statues of the queen.
Abu Simbel summer seldom fall below 20 °C. Winters are mild with highs around 25 °C, when temperatures can sometimes fall below 10 °C at night. Precipitation is so rare here that it is impossible to state a "rainy season" for Abu Simbel. In the past, Abu Simbel was located on the west bank of the Nile between the first and second Cataracts of the Nile. Cataracts are rapids caused by boulders or rock sills; they were only passable with difficulty by Nile ship traffic, especially at baseflow. Today both cataracts near Aswan and Wadi Halfa are covered by Lake Nasser, which