Scientific rediscovery of the Abu Simbel temples
Redescubrimiento científico de los templos de Abu Simbel
- Date
- 1813 (hallazgo) / 1817 (excavación) · confidence high
- Place
- Abu Simbel, Aswan, Egypt
- Credited to
- Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (find, 1813); Giovanni Battista Belzoni (excavation of the Great Temple's entrance, 1817)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Guided by accounts from the local Nubian population, the Swiss explorer Burckhardt spotted the upper frieze of the Great Temple half-buried in sand; four years later Belzoni managed to open its entrance, introducing European Egyptology to one of Ramesses II's great monuments.
It was not a genuine 'discovery': the local Nubian population knew of and visited the site, and Burckhardt described it from residents' accounts before seeing it himself. It is included, like Machu Picchu elsewhere in this catalogue, for the milestone it did represent: the scientific documentation that opened the site to Western Egyptology, not a genuine find.
What it led to
- Boost to European Egyptology as an excavation discipline
- Archaeological tourism in Upper Egypt
- Relocation of the temples in 1964-1968, a UNESCO engineering feat to save them from the Aswan reservoir