Abu Simbel Temples

Four seated colossi of Ramses II, each 20 metres high, front the Great Temple. The axis runs 60 metres into solid rock through an Osiride hall to a sanctuary where four seated gods sit at the back — and where, on 22 February and 22 October, the rising sun still reaches three of the four faces.

The smaller temple next door was dedicated to Hathor and to Nefertari, and it is the only occasion in Egyptian history when a queen was carved at the same scale as her king on a temple façade.

Carved around 1264 BC. Between 1964 and 1968 UNESCO cut both temples into 1,036 blocks weighing up to 30 tonnes, moved them 65 metres higher and 200 metres back, and rebuilt them inside an artificial mountain ahead of Lake Nasser flooding the original site.