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
Kazimierz Michałowski were discovered under the "church of the columns". The second building based on the cruciform plan was also explored as well as a mosque which turned out to be erected on a former royal palace and not (as previously assumed) on a Christian temple. Polish archaeologists discovered also a baptistery. Since 1966 a Polish mission was performing parallel prehistoric excavations in the vicinity the village of Gaddar. Professor Michałowski did not excavate in Abu Simbel but along with a team of Polish archaeologists he took part in the salvaging of rock temples of Pharaoh Ramesses II, which were at risk