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
Great and Small Temples of Abu Simbel “Mansion of Millions of Years Hewn in the Rock” as the First King’s Cupbearer Ashahebsed said. Inside the temple, statues of Ramesses II are presented alongside statues of the gods, showing the fact that he is one of them, and indeed, he is even shown as presenting offerings to himself. Both temples are rock-cut temples. The edifices are hewn into huge sandstone mounds that were already at the site. Despite the fact that the temples were carved into the sandstone mounds rather than built, they are similar in design to all Egyptian temples. For example, the façades of the Great