Original subtitles

Narrator: abu simbel,

Egypt's largest rock-cut temple,

Carved into A 100-foot-high cliff.

Inside, a mysterious sanctuary

To honor strange gods.

Ward: this is an extreme feat Of engineering,

And in my opinion, It is one of the wonders

Of the ancient world.

Narrator: This colossal structure Was built 3,000 years ago

By the pharaoh ramesses ii.

He was braver, mightier, And more powerful

Than any other egyptian king.

Narrator: Ramesses transformed himself

Into the greatest ruler In egypt's history.

How did he do it?

Could the secrets Of his meteoric rise

Be locked inside This magnificent temple?

To solve these mysteries,

We'll deconstruct Abu simbel's giant statues

And open its sacred chambers

To uncover the truth behind

How ramesses became Egypt's greatest-ever pharaoh.

--captions by vitac-- Www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

Egypt -- land of the pharaohs.

They were fearless warriors,

Master builders,

Leaders of a powerful, Ancient religion.

Then came ramesses ii.

His ambition -- To surpass the achievements

Of all his predecessors And go down in history

As the greatest pharaoh Of all time.

The crowning glory Of his reign --

His great temple at abu simbel.

Ward: ramesses ii Was a mighty pharaoh,

And he built this temple To show people exactly that.

Intimidating, powerful, And proud.

Narrator: overlooking the river Nile in southern egypt,

This mighty stone structure

Is one of the largest Rock-cut temples in the world.

Could decoding its secrets

Unlock how ramesses became Egypt's greatest pharaoh?

♪♪

Abu simbel Is a spectacle in stone

Carved from the cliff face.

Four colossal statues Of ramesses adorn the front.

♪♪

Hidden behind The magnificent facade

Runs a giant, 30-foot-high Hypostyle hall,

Flanked by eight imposing Statues of the pharaoh.

♪♪

160 feet inside the cliff

Sits a sanctuary To the great gods of egypt.

But is abu simbel really Just a temple to these deities?

Can decoding its hidden messages

Unlock the secrets Of ramesses' success?

♪♪

Ward: at first glance, It looks as if ramesses ii

Had built this temple

To celebrate and worship The sun god ra,

In egyptian religion, The source of all life

And the creator of the universe.

But actually, I think There's more to it than that.

Narrator: archeologist And explorer john ward

Is an expert in ancient Egyptian engineering.

There are many features here --

Falcons, symbols one expects

Of a temple Dedicated to sun worship,

That adorn the front terrace.

Above us, ra himself.

Narrator: John investigates a theory

That this great monument Is no ordinary temple.

He thinks it contains An encoded message

And that solving it Will reveal the first step

Ramesses took To achieve greatness.

♪♪

When the sun's rays Strike the temple,

They flood the outer Chambers with light.

160 feet deep into the cliff,

The sanctuary Remains in darkness.

But two days a year, something Extraordinary happens.

On february 22nd And october 22nd,

The rising sun aligns perfectly With the temple entrance.

Its rays penetrate The holy sanctuary

And bathe the gods in light.

How did ramesses align His temple with the sunrise

On just two dates each year?

And why?

John believes a clue lies

At the most famous Of all archeological sites

In ancient egypt --

The great pyramids.

I'm holding a map Of the giza plateau,

And I'm looking at the pyramids And the sphinx

And all of the Surrounding monuments,

And one thing that is Striking straightaway

Is its north and south access

Are aligned to both north And south compass points.

Narrator: a priesthood Of surveyors achieved this feat

By applying a deep knowledge Of the night sky.

♪♪

How they did so Remains a mystery.

Some experts think they tracked The path of two bright stars

To find the direction Of true north.

And they were Astonishingly accurate.

Archeologists have determined That all of the monuments

On the giza plateau Have been aligned

Within 1/10 of a degree.

Narrator: So if surveyor priests used Their knowledge of the stars

To align the pyramids,

How did they align abu simbel With our star, the sun?

John believes they used a simple But ingenious technique.

The priest would stand Behind this rod,

Which would be anchored To the ground

In front of where the temple Is going to be.

The morning sunrise would cast A shadow across the ground.

Now I need my helper. Abdul.

[ speaks arabic ]

So, the shadow's cast All the way

Right to the very end, To here.

By placing a marker in the sand At the end of the shadow

And repeating this process Day after day

Over a period of a year, The ancient surveyors

Were able to create an arc,

Basically a record Of every morning sunrise.

Narrator: Once the priests had recorded

A whole year's worth Of solar observations,

They could align the temple With the rising sun

On any date they chose.

So, why did they pick two dates In february and october?

Ward: some believe That the february date

Marks ramesses' birthday,

While october marks His ascension to the throne.

Narrator: but there's more to This mystery than special dates.

John's convinced That if he can decode

The identities of the figures Inside the temple,

He can unlock its true purpose.

Three statues represent The old gods of egypt --

Ptah, lord of truth,

Amun, lord of the sky,

And on the far right, The sun god ra.

♪♪

But who is the fourth figure?

♪♪

John discovers a clue Hidden in plain sight --

An encrypted message Carved on the temple facade.

Ward: standing above the Entrance here is the sun god ra,

But ramesses has done Something pretty ingenious.

He's hidden a message Within the statue itself

That reveals the true function Of this temple complex.

Narrator: with his falcon's head And sun disk,

At first glance, The statue looks like ra,

The most important egyptian god,

Creator of the earth And of life itself.

But his hands hold clues To a different identity.

The right one grasps an user,

A symbol denoting The word "Strength."

And in his left hand, He holds the symbol ma'at,

Meaning truth and justice On earth,

Order and harmony in the cosmos.

But joined together, These three symbols

Spell another word, User-ma'at-ra,

A name that reveals The temple's true purpose.

♪♪

Ward: usermaatre was The throne name of ramesses ii,

And it was the name That he was known by

Throughout the whole land Of egypt.

The symbolism that surrounds us Proves that he built

And dedicated this temple To himself.

Narrator: the statue above The temple's entrance,

The fourth figure In the sanctuary --

They both represent ramesses,

Not as a man

But as a god.

♪♪

All pharaohs were Considered divine

But secondary To the old gods of egypt.

Ramesses went one step further.

He dared to show He was their equal.

By depicting himself As a giant-sized living god,

Ramesses had taken The first step

To securing his status As the greatest.

But cutting This huge statement of power

From an entire cliff face Was an unprecedented challenge.

How did ramesses do it?

And was this just one Part of a far bigger plan

To win ramesses the title of Egypt's greatest-ever pharaoh?

Narrator: Abu simbel, egypt.

Ramesses ii Built this mighty temple

In a bid to make himself A living god.

And become the greatest Of all egypt's pharaohs.

Inside, two giant chambers Stretch 160 feet into the cliff.

Skilled quarrymen carved them From the solid rock,

Workers who applied knowledge Gained over many centuries

From excavating deep tombs,

Like those In the valley of the kings.

They used bronze tools

To hollow out Huge chambers and tunnels.

♪♪

The interior may have been

Abu simbel's most dangerous Construction job.

♪♪

But it's the temple's exterior That is the greatest puzzle.

105 feet tall And 125 feet wide...

♪♪

...This is the largest facade Of any rock-cut temple in egypt.

How did ramesses execute A design on such a huge scale?

♪♪

The statues on the facade

Are 15 times The height of the average male.

Each mighty head is 13 feet wide

And adorned With the double crown,

Symbolizing power over egypt.

At his feet stand ramesses' Children, wife, and mother,

A royal guard For the sun guard ra.

At the summit Sit 22 sacred baboons...

♪♪

...Whose cry The egyptians believed

Welcomed the rising sun.

How did ramesses' masons Cut back this entire cliff face?

♪♪

When ramesses was pharaoh, The ancient egyptians

Had been master builders For more than 1,000 years.

♪♪

They'd engineered The great pyramids of giza

And turned stone blocks Into works of art.

But archeologist john ward knows That to build abu simbel,

Ramesses' workforce Had to overcome a challenge

They'd never faced before.

Ramesses ii's building plan Was unprecedented

In both size, scale, And ambition.

He wanted nothing less Than the largest rock-cut temple

Egypt had ever seen.

Narrator: some scholars estimate That quarrymen

Had to remove 13,000 tons of rock

To cut the temple From the cliff face.

Chipping away piece by piece Would have taken far too long,

So how did they do it?

Adel kelany is an expert

In ancient egyptian Building technologies.

♪♪

He believed That abu simbel's masons

Removed stones systematically, Block by block.

♪♪

♪♪

Masons pack palm tree skin Inside the holes

To hold the chisel in place.

Then they strike them one by one

Until the rock starts to split.

♪♪

Adel times how long his men need To cut a single sandstone block

Weighing 2 1/2 tons.

♪♪

♪♪

So, how long Did it take the workmen

To cut back the rock face At abu simbel?

♪♪

♪♪

But reducing the cliff face Was just the beginning.

Ward: the quarrymen had merely Created a blank canvas.

Now the craftsmen faced A second set of challenges --

To cut back and carve The statues of the great temple.

Narrator: Sculpting the temple facade

With four 65-foot-high statues Was no simple task.

Getting the measurements wrong

Could jeopardize The whole project.

So how did The stone masons ensure

All the statues were identical?

John thinks they scaled up An ingenious technique

Traditionally used To paint tombs.

♪♪

What I'm holding here Is a picture

Of an unfinished relief In a tomb in thebes.

But what it shows Is the grid technique

That the artists applied To the wall prior to painting.

Narrator: the grid breaks A complex picture down

Into lots of smaller, Easier-to-draw images.

This grid allows them To transfer any image

From a scale drawing Onto a much larger surface.

Narrator: john is convinced That ramesses' surveyors

Used this same technique At abu simbel.

But how did they mark out a grid On a rock face 100 feet high?

♪♪

John believes That the surveyors developed

Their own innovative solution.

This is the square level, A most ingenious device

Invented by The ancient egyptians.

Basically, it allowed The surveying

Of a straight, horizontal line,

Accurate within 1 centimeter,

Over a whole span of 100 meters.

Narrator: To investigate how it worked,

Adel's team stretches A cord soaked in red paint

Between two square levels...

[ conversing in arabic ]

And snap it against the rock Face to mark a horizontal line.

♪♪

Ancient builders May have super-sized

This technique at abu simbel.

They would have used scaffolding

To mark out giant rows Of horizontal lines.

♪♪

Then, from the top Of the cliff face,

It's likely They hung weighted ropes

And drew vertical lines To complete their grid.

Using this system, They scaled up smaller drawings

To produce outlines of ramesses On the rock face.

Only after marking out The facade and the entranceway

Could workers begin To cut their pharaoh

And the chambers of his temple Out of solid rock.

♪♪

This building project Was overseen by ramesses himself

But managed and executed To meticulous detail

By the quarrymen And the master masons.

Narrator: ramesses built Egypt's greatest rock-cut temple

As part of his plan to become Egypt's greatest-ever pharaoh.

But if ramesses built abu simbel To glorify himself,

Why did he construct A second temple next door?

And why is it dedicated To someone else?

Narrator: The great temple at abu simbel,

A monument Pharaoh ramesses ii built

To transform himself From a king into a living god.

But this isn't The only temple here.

Beside it stands another,

And it's a clue To a tactic used by ramesses

To secure absolute power And realize his dream

To become egypt's Greatest-ever pharaoh.

♪♪

To the north of the great temple

Stands a second, smaller temple,

Cut from the same cliff face.

Four colossal statues Of the pharaoh himself

And two of a woman Stand guard at the entrance.

♪♪

Inside, carvings show her Praying to the gods,

Making them offerings,

While goddesses anoint her With a sacred crown.

♪♪

But this rock-cut chapel Is a puzzle.

Why did ramesses build a temple To this woman?

And how did this help To magnify his own reputation?

♪♪

Maria nilsson Investigates this mystery.

She decodes An ancient inscription

On the temple's facade to reveal The woman's identity...

♪♪

...Nefertari, Ramesses' first wife.

This temple is curious.

We know that the pharaohs Built tombs

For their great royal wives,

But they didn't build Temples to them.

Narrator: the statues indicate

Just how highly Ramesses regarded his wife.

Nilsson: to the left, We got queen nefertari.

To the right, king ramesses.

Now, they're equal in size,

Which means that he treated her As his equal.

No other king In egyptian history

Treated his queen With such respect.

♪♪

Narrator: ramesses had built Abu simbel's large temple

To proclaim himself the greatest Of egypt's pharaohs.

So why did he allow nefertari To share in his glory?

♪♪

Maria believes the answer lies In a forgotten temple

200 miles north of abu simbel.

One of its shrines contains An ancient inscription

That maria thinks reveals

Why ramesses believed nefertari Deserved her own temple.

♪♪

It shows his wife Performing a strange ritual.

Here we have Queen nefertari herself

Standing in front of the Hippopotamus goddess, taweret,

The goddess of childbirth.

Narrator: beside the inscription Is a message

Unlike any other in egypt.

Nilsson: "She who satisfies the gods."

Now, that's a title usually Connected to the king,

As a high priest of the gods.

To my knowledge, queen nefertari Was the only queen

Who was honored With this grand title.

♪♪

Narrator: The inscription reveals

Ramesses elevated his wife To joint supreme head

Of ancient egypt's State religion.

Why did he promote nefertari To this level?

What did she have That ramesses needed so badly?

♪♪

At abu simbel, maria Finds an intriguing clue --

Inscriptions that reveal Nefertari's ancestry.

So, what we've got here are The titles of queen nefertari,

Starting with "Hereditary noblewoman,"

Followed by "Great of praise."

Now, the first title Is what's really important,

Because it established her As a daughter of a nobleman,

Which is obviously An important clue.

♪♪

Narrator: ramesses' origins Were far humbler.

His grandfather was a solider Who had been given the throne.

Ramesses' family had ruled egypt

For little more than a decade.

His grandfather was a commoner.

There is a family secret.

Ramesses did not come From a long line of royalty.

Narrator: Nefertari gave ramesses

The single most Important thing he needed

To become egypt's Greatest pharaoh --

Legitimacy.

The family was very well aware

That his right to rule Could be challenged.

So by marrying nefertari, A noblewoman,

He could secure His right to rule.

♪♪

Narrator: queen nefertari Was ramesses' wife for 24 years,

Bearing him four sons

Who became high priests And commanders of his army.

Of all the pharaoh's wives,

Nefertari was The most important.

She organized The royal household

And the lives of ramesses' Other wives and children.

As priestess, Nefertari conducted

Sacred rituals with the pharaoh

And held a unique position

As joint supreme head Of egypt's state religion.

Nefertari even Engaged in diplomacy.

She sent letters and gifts To foreign queens

To maintain peace Between nations.

♪♪

Nilsson: ramesses was egypt's Most powerful man,

But he also made nefertari The most powerful woman.

♪♪

Narrator: decoding abu simbel Reveals the vital role

Ramesses' chief wife played

In his plan to become the Greatest pharaoh of all time.

♪♪

But does ramesses' account Of a famous chariot battle

Prove he was also Egypt's greatest warrior,

Or its greatest self-publicist?

♪♪

Narrator: Abu simbel, a masterpiece

Of ancient egyptian engineering,

Cut by hand Into a sheer cliff face,

Built by ramesses ii To proclaim his transformation

From king into a living god.

But does this temple Contain other clues

That reveal ramesses' next steps To fulfill his ambition

To become egypt's Greatest-ever pharaoh?

♪♪

Inside the temple's Central chamber,

Religious carvings Cover the walls.

The divine ramesses Burns incense before isis,

Goddess of magic.

He offers bread and wine To the gods of creation

And kneels before ra,

God of the rising sun.

But not all the carvings inside The temple are religious.

There are also Scenes of violence --

Ramesses at war,

Crushing the enemy

And beheading prisoners.

♪♪

Why are there battle scenes On the walls of a temple?

♪♪

Maria nilsson searches for clues

Chiseled into abu simbel's Wall carvings.

One of the most important Responsibilities of the pharaoh

Was to show the gods And his people

That he could maintain The country in peace

By defeating his enemies.

♪♪

Narrator: all egyptian pharaohs Depicted themselves

As military strongmen.

Obsessed with being The greatest,

Ramesses proclaimed His victories

Louder than any pharaoh Before him.

His most spectacular was against The rival hittite empire

At the battle of kadesh.

Ramesses carved in stone An account

Of what was the greatest Chariot battle in history.

He claims That the hittites attacked,

And he had to rush To the defense of his forces.

And with these chariots And horses,

He came to the rescue.

And he crushes the enemies

Like crocodiles Falling into the river.

Narrator: what was it About the egyptian war chariot

That gave ramesses such An advantage on the battlefield?

♪♪

Egyptologist yossra ibrahim Investigates this mystery.

She puts a replica chariot Through its paces

To test the technology Ramesses claimed he used

To win his great victory.

♪♪

She discovers the chariot

Is a fast and stable Fighting platform.

Ibrahim: The egyptians revolutionized

The manufacture of the chariots.

They introduced the six spokes For the wheel,

Which made it move much faster.

The two wheels are far part,

Which made it very difficult To tip over.

Narrator: but it's clear The egyptian chariot

Also had serious drawbacks.

Ibrahim: the problem With the semicircular body

Is that it's very low,

So it doesn't really Protect you.

You can easily get shot.

Another disadvantage

Is that it takes a lot of time To turn around.

Narrator: and some experts Believe hittite chariots

Were more robust And better protected.

♪♪

So, if it wasn't technology

That delivered ramesses The crushing victory he claims,

What did?

Yossra investigates at karnak,

A huge temple complex 300 miles north of abu simbel.

♪♪

Here, she discovers a clue Locked inside a poem

That recounts the battle.

Ibrahim: so, according to The poem, ramesses found himself

Alone on the battlefield, Abandoned by his army.

So he turned to his father, The god amun,

Who made him invincible.

After that, ramesses claims

To have single-handedly defeated 2,500 enemies.

Narrator: ramesses' account Of the battle is pure fantasy.

And when yossra ignores his Claims of divine intervention

And sudden miraculous powers,

A very different version Of events begins to emerge.

♪♪

In his war against the hittites,

Ramesses split his army And led half his chariots north,

To seize the enemy fort Of kadesh,

Which he thought was unguarded.

But ramesses was tricked By hittite spies.

East of kadesh, 3,000 hittite chariots

Launched a surprise attack.

♪♪

Ramesses rallied his troops.

Helped by reinforcements, He engaged his enemy.

But the result was a standoff.

Ramesses failed to take kadesh.

Humiliated, he was forced To withdraw.

♪♪

So why did ramesses Lie about the battle

In his temple at abu simbel?

To ramesses, Truth was not important.

The only thing that mattered Was to establish himself

As the greatest Warrior of egypt.

Narrator: Ramesses used abu simbel

As a weapon Of political propaganda

And rewrote history To promote the myth

That he was an invincible Military leader.

But ramesses wanted to guarantee

His achievements would surpass Those of all his predecessors.

Was this temple just one Of many buildings he erected

To make that dream a reality?

And if abu simbel was hewn From a solid rock face,

Why is it crisscrossed With deep, straight cracks?

♪♪

Narrator: abu simbel, A great temple ramesses ii built

To turn himself Into a living god

And exaggerate his skill As a mighty military hero...

Part of an ambitious plan

To win the title Of ramesses the great.

But it's what missing From this site

That could unlock the mystery

Of how ramesses completed His transformation

Into the greatest Of all egypt's pharaohs.

Abu simbel was a construction Project of epic proportions.

Guided by a massive grid, Quarrymen removed stone

From the cliff in giant blocks

To shape the beginnings Of the facade.

Masons then honed the rough Blocks into human shapes,

One statue at a time,

And skilled sculptors finely Carved the intricate details

Before the entire temple Was brightly painted.

Its construction Left 13,000 tons

Of stone blocks cast aside,

So what did ramesses Do with them?

And does the answer reveal

His plans for greatness Extended far beyond abu simbel?

♪♪

To find out, Yossra ibrahim travels to luxor,

The ancient capital Of upper egypt.

Here, ramesses created This architectural wonder

To rival abu simbel.

It's called the ramesseum.

Like abu simbel, it was designed

To encourage the people of egypt

To worship ramesses As a god for all eternity.

The ramesseum is the mortuary Temple of ramesses ii.

Ramesses built this temple To preserve his name

And promote his cult.

♪♪

Narrator: yossra believes Decoding its true purpose

Could unlock How ramesses finally realized

His lifelong ambition --

To be the greatest Of egypt's pharaohs.

Beside the temple is a series Of strange arched chambers

That look completely different From the rest of the complex.

These chambers were used to Hold grain, wheat, and barley.

People would bring the grain And climb up to the roof

And pour it through holes In the ceiling.

Then grain would be stored here In huge amounts.

Narrator: in ancient egypt, Grain was currency.

So how much money did These granaries hold?

♪♪

Yossra measures Their combined floor area

To calculate the wealth Ramesses amassed.

Ibrahim: I have measured every Single chamber on this site,

And I calculated the total Floor area of all chambers,

And it comes up To 8,261 square meters,

Which would total to 16 1/2 million liters of grain.

Narrator: That's almost 10,000 tons,

More than the weight Of the eiffel tower,

Enough to pay a workforce

Equivalent to the population Of a medium-sized city.

But why did ramesses Store so much wealth

Inside his mortuary temple?

Yossra believes It's because the ramesseum

Served more than one purpose.

♪♪

It was a temple Dedicated to ramesses,

A cult center for his worship,

Built to preserve The pharaoh's name forever.

But ramesses also added a school

To educate generations Of administrators,

Paid for by the stores of grain.

♪♪

Ramesses grouped religion, Central bank,

And state department Under one roof.

But why did he do it?

♪♪

Yossra thinks ramesses used This vast complex

As the control center

For a project unprecedented In egyptian history...

♪♪

...A nationwide Building program,

More ambitious in scale

Than any pharaoh Had ever attempted before.

He wanted to make His name more famous

And his achievements More glorious

Than any of his predecessors.

He launched nothing less Than his own building program

Across all of egypt.

Narrator: from the mediterranean Coast to the southern desert,

Ramesses built huge statues, Giant temples,

And towering obelisks.

♪♪

Ramesses believed that becoming Egypt's greatest-ever builder

Was the final step to becoming Its greatest-ever pharaoh.

♪♪

This could explain what happened To the leftover stone

Quarried during Abu simbel's construction.

Ramesses administrators May have ensured it was reused

For another of the pharaoh's Great projects.

♪♪

Ramesses' building program

Was the greatest In all ancient egyptian history.

To this day, More monuments bear his name

Than any other pharaoh,

Including his mighty temple At abu simbel.

♪♪

But this soaring monument Has one final enigma.

This mega-structure is covered

By a grid of deep, Straight cracks.

How did they get here?

And what secret Egyptian building technique

Do they reveal

That's been hidden For more than 3,000 years?

♪♪

Narrator: abu simbel,

The largest rock-cut temple In all egypt.

Woven into its mighty Structure are clues

That reveal The steps ramesses took

To become the greatest Pharaoh of all time.

♪♪

But it conceals One final mystery.

The entire monument Is crisscrossed

By a grid of deep cracks.

[ crackling ]

This one clearly cuts through Just above the ankle

And continues all the way

Into the pillar Behind this great statue.

♪♪

Narrator: abu simbel was hewn From solid rock.

So where did these Cracks come from?

The clue lies in their age.

These cracks weren't Made in antiquity...

♪♪

...But just six decades ago.

♪♪

In 1960, the government of egypt

Built a new dam across the nile.

It transformed 2 1/2 million acres

Of desert into farmland.

But the dam also created A giant lake.

To prevent abu simbel From being submerged...

♪♪

...International engineers

Mounted an unprecedented Rescue mission.

They cut the temple into pieces

And rebuilt it on higher ground Away from the rising waters.

They cut the monument Into individual blocks,

And I'm standing Right next to one here.

This cut line descends All the way down

And then continues All the way along here

To this corner And then descends here.

This huge, megalithic block Once laid down there

In this original position.

And each block was Actually hoisted by crane

To this location, Creating the new abu simbel.

♪♪

Narrator: engineers raced To transport abu simbel

Piece by piece, 130 feet up To the top of the cliff.

♪♪

One can't even begin To conceptualize

What would've happened if one Of the cranes had faltered,

If one of the legs of ramesses

Had fallen to the ground And smashed.

Thousands of years of archeology Just lost in a second.

Narrator: Rescued from destruction,

Moving ramesses' great temple

Revealed the last Of its secrets...

♪♪

...Evidence of Engineering expertise

That lay hidden for 3,000 years.

Ward: those clear lines Of stratification

In the upper legs Of ramesses there

Clearly show us That the ancient egyptians

Had an understanding Of the geology

And the makeup of this mountain.

Narrator: Abu simbel's builders selected

The hardest layers of rock

To carve out load-bearing walls

Strong enough to support The weight of the cliff above.

John ward believes this was A deliberate design feature,

Incorporated to ensure Ramesses' mighty temple

Lasted for millennia.

♪♪

It was only When modern engineers

Had actually reassembled This temple,

That they appreciated The art, the science,

And the engineering That had gone in

To actually creating This great monument.

Narrator: The largest rock-cut temple

In egyptian history.

With four colossal statues Of the pharaoh

And a sacred inner chamber Aligned with the sunrise,

Abu simbel proclaimed An idealized version of ramesses

And immortalized him As a living god.

♪♪

But the temple also reveals How ramesses ii

Made himself egypt's Greatest pharaoh.

He secured his grip on power Through marriage,

Built more monuments Than any of his ancestors,

And rewrote history To glorify his achievements.

Ramesses the great Transformed egypt

And won a glittering reputation

That has lasted 3,000 years.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪