Abu Simbel, site south of Aswan, on the western bank of the Nile River in what was Nubia (now near Egypt’s border with Sudan). It has two rock-cut temples from the nineteenth dynasty reign of Ramesses II. First noted in European literature by Johann Burckhardt in 1819, Abu Simbel has since become one of the most famous of monuments in the Nile Valley. Following the decision to build a new High Dam at Aswan in the early 1960s, the temples were dismantled and relocated in 1968 on the desert plateau 64 meters (about 200 feet) above and 180 meters (600 feet) west of their original site.

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