18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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A tonic for tourism
To boost the flagging tourism industry, President Mubarak is expected to inaugurate the magnificent, newly-restored temple of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt within days. Nevine El-Aref reports
The Abu Simbel temple complex, rescued in the 1960s from the waters behind the Aswan High Dam, and reconstructed on firm ground nearby, has been restored and refurbished. Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at the Luxor necropolis has also undergone a facelift.
The area around the two sites has been revamped to provide better facilities for tourists. Since the frenzied salvage operation in 1968, the twin Abu Simbel temples have stood in the middle of an otherwise parched landscape. Hatshepsut's terraced sanctuary was virtually neglected between World War II and 1960, when Egyptian and Polish restorers began work on it.
Now, both monuments set an example for future work in the architecturally rich areas of Luxor, Aswan and Nubia.
President Hosni Mubarak will soon open the freshly restored monuments. Mubarak has supported several archaeological projects, including the rehabilitation of Islamic Cairo and plans to turn it into an open-air museum.
"President Mubarak's visit to these archaeological sites is related to the recession of tourism" resulting from Palestinian-Israeli confrontations and terrorist and counter-terrorist actions worldwide, said Gaballa Ali Gaballa, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. He hoped that the visit will boost Egypt's tourism industry.
photo: Mohames WassimMubarak, accompanied by Culture Minister Farouk Hosni and other high-ranking government officials, will first visit the Hatshepsut temple in Deir El-Bahari to reopen its Upper Court, marking the completion of 40 years of restoration activities. The temple, called "the most splendid of all," is a rock- hewn structure framed by high cliffs and adorned with some of the most famous reliefs in the Nile Valley, specifically the one showing Hatshepsut's birth colonnade and her voyage to Punt on the East African Somali coast.
The temple was first brought to public attention in 1798 by members of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. Then, drifting sand obscured most of the monument. In 1894, the Egypt exploration society started to exhume the temple properly. Their work continued for nine years. Some of the colonnades were roofed in and alterations were carried out to preserve the reliefs.
For a period after World War II, the temple was completely neglected. When Egyptian and Polish restorers started work in 1960, the upper terrace was in ruin and some 10,000 blocks of inscribed stone littered the site.
"It was like collecting the pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle and putting them together," said Hosni. "It was not difficult to replace blocks that had fallen from the already restored lower terraces, but the upper terrace proved to be a challenge."
The restoration work concentrated on the Upper Court, where Thutmose III had built a temple. Part of his temple was destroyed in ancient times by an earthquake, and some of its blocks were used to build other monuments. Only a small part of the western wall survived, along with some chambers. These have been restored and the painted reliefs held in position by polychrome blocks.
Another part of the temple's third terrace suffered at the hands of Christian monks when the temple was converted into a monastery. "The walls were completely blackened by candle smoke. When we cleaned the walls, beautiful scenes in fresh, well- preserved colour emerged, showing Hatshepsut and Thutmose III and their little daughter sacrificing to the barge of Amun," Sabri Abdel-Aziz, director- general of antiquities in Upper Egypt, said.
The second stop for President Mubarak will be the Abu Simbel complex. He will inaugurate, and check on, work upgrading and developing the landscape around the temple.
In addition to improving the lighting and restoration work on some of the reliefs, the big attraction of the Abu Simbel project is the new visitors' centre, built at the foot of the twin temples.
The centre has a lecture hall and a screen room where documentaries of the elaborate salvage operation are shown. But the centre's most significant addition to the complex is a three- dimensional miniature design of the twin structures, showing the various corridors, halls and sanctuaries of the temples. Also on display are photographs of the most noteworthy reliefs.
Taking into account archaeologists' concerns that overcrowding causes irreparable damage to the temples, tour guides will no longer be able to give lectures inside the temple. Instead, groups will gather at the centre before entering the temples and their guides will use the design to point out specific points of interest.
Only after that, says Ayman Abdel-Moneim, archaeologist responsible for the development project, will visitors be guided into the temples in a quiet and orderly fashion. To tighten security measures inside and outside the complex, a high-tech safety system, like those used in the Egyptian Museum and the Citadel, has been installed.
There will also be a special dock for Nile cruisers.
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