Abu Simbel temples The temple was forgotten until 1813, when Swiss orientalist Jean-Louis Burckhardt found the top frieze of the main temple. Burckhardt talked about his discovery with Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni, who travelled to the site, but was unable to dig out an entry to the temple. Belzoni returned in 1817, this time succeeding in his attempt to enter the complex. A detailed early description of the temples, together with contemporaneous line drawings, can be found in Edward William Lane's "Description of Egypt" (1825–1828). In 1959, an international donations campaign to save the monuments of Nubia began: the southernmost relics of this
Mirza Abu Taleb Khan asserts that it is possible to read Abu Taleb's book as a series of comparisons praising the virtues of the east above the west: "the Muslims of Cape Town are kind and superior; the savages of Andaman are preferable to his European shipmates; Oxford is almost like the ancient Indian temples; the Quazis are superior to the English jury system – which is frightening and often prone to mistakes ... Abu Taleb praises the English 'equality of all' before the law and yet proceeds to suggest that this 'equality is more in appearance than in reality'. He attacks the British