Joseph Bonomi the Younger into debt and was eventually happy to accept a modestly paid commission to accompany Robert Hay on an expedition, via Malta, to Egypt in 1824. This began a lifelong interest in Egyptology. From 1824 to 1826, he was a member of Hay's expedition where he sketched many antiquities. At Abu Simbel in 1825, Bonomi – responding to Hay's demands for great accuracy – devised a drawing frame (a viewfinder-type device equipped with a sight and a string or wire grid) to help them draw the temples' interior decorations. The expedition then moved on to Kalabsha, where Bonomi laboured to produce
Abu Simbel agricultural land the entire population now depends on tourism. Since the turn of the millennium, various projects are underway with the goal of making the elevated desert regions fertile using water from the lake. Abu Simbel Abu Simbel (also Abu Simbal, Ebsambul or Isambul; or ) is a village in the Egyptian part of Nubia, about 240 kilometers southwest of Aswan and near the border with Sudan. As of 2012, it has about 2600 inhabitants. It is best known as the site of the Abu Simbel temples. The name Abu Simbel is European, a cacography of the Arabic "Abu Sunbul",