Garf Husien Temple, Aswan, Egypt
Carved into a mountainside on the orders of Pharaoh Rameses (Ramesses) II, Gerf Hussein has similarities to the well known temple at Abu Simbel, on a smaller scale.
The interior of the temple of Gerf Husein was not rescued from the waters of the Aswan High Dam and now is underwater. One great statue of Rameses is now the centerpiece of the Nubian Museum in Aswan, and a few other pieces of the temple are there. The exterior columns form a sad and lonely group in their new location among the rocks at New Kalabsha. With the justified celebration that many important monuments of Nubia were saved by the international, UNESCO sponsored effort, should go the acknowledgment that much was lost, that restored temples are out of their natural settings of which they were a function, and that nobody knows how much was never found.
Epic Egypt Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound
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