Perpendicular Sun

The sun’s rays shine 

Egypt celebrates the phenomenon of the sun perpendicular to the face of King Ramses II 

In Abu Simbel , Aswan Government, which is 33 centuries old.It is a unique astronomical pharaonic phenomenon that is repeated twice every year, October 22 and February 22.

The axis of the temple was placed by the ancient Egyptian engineer, the sunlight penetrates on the temple and sheds light on the statue and appears on the back wall with a length 200 meters  , except for the statue of Ptah. That was associated with hell, and was always in dark . 

These dates are said that they are the King’s birthplace and respectively the day of this coronation, but there is no evidence to support this. 

Although it is completely logical to assume that some of these dates are related to a major event , such as the celebration of the jubilee ( The thirtieth anniversary of the rule of the Pharaoh).

In fact, according to calculations made on the basis of the solar altitude of the Sirius star and the inscriptions found by archaeologists, the date should have been October 22 .

The sun’s rays crept into the temple corridor and reached the Holy of Holies with a length of 60 meters , where king Ramses II sits next to 3 other statues of two ancient Egyptians, the statue of the god “Ra Hor “ , his sister “ the god Amun “ and a fourth statue of the god Ptah. The phenomenon lasts for only 20 minutes. 

That there are two accounts of the reason for the sun’s perpendicularly, the first is that the ancient Egyptians designed the temple based on the movement of the ark to determine the start and fertilisation of the agricultural season , and the second narrative: that these two days coincide with the day of the birth of King Ramses II and the day of his sitting on the throne. 

This image of the king was enhanced and energised by the solar energy of the star , and the deity Rameses the great could take his position next to Amun-Ra, Ptah and Re-Hour-Akhti.

Due to the relocation of the temple, it is widely believed that this event is now occurring one day later than it was originally. 

After the construction of the High Dam, the temple of Abu Simbel was subjected to drowning as a result of the accumulation of water behind the Dam and the formation of Lake Nasser . 

The international campaign to save the monuments of temple and Nubia began between 1964 and 1968, through UNESCO in cooperation with the Egyptian government, at a cost of $ 40 million. 

The temple was moved by dismantling the parts and statues of the temple and reinstalling it in its new location at a height of 65 meters above the river level, and it is considered one of the greatest works in archaeological engineering. 

The temples of Abu Simbel were discovered on August 1, 1817 when the Italian explorer Giovanni Belonzi succeeded in finding them among the sands of the south, explaining that the phenomenon of the sun’s perpendicularity was discovered in 1874, when the explorer “ Emilia Edwards “ and her accompanying team spotted this. The phenomenon and recorded in her book published in 1899 entitled “A Thousand Miles Over The Nile “.

And King Ramses II built his great temple in Abu Simbel and built next to it a temple for his beloved wife , Queen Nefertari, but the miracle remains if the days of the sun’s perpendicular days are chosen and deliberately determined before the sculpting process, because this requires full knowledge of the origins of astronomy and many calculations to determine the angle of deviation of the axis of the temple from the east besides the miracle in architecture that the axis is straight for a distance of more than sixty meters, especially since the temple is carved in the rock.