Nearly 6,000 Egyptian and foreign tourists visited Abu Simbel Temple on Tuesday to witness the solar alignment on the temple’s Holy of Holies, according to a statement by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The alignment occurs twice a year, once on 22 February and once more on 22 October. This year, however, the ministry deemed that 22-02-2022 was too exceptional of date to pass up without a celebration.
Consequently, the ministry organised a special celebration that included an artistic show using modern and advanced technological means in front of Lake Nasser, which was established in the 1960s.
A large screen was installed in the front yard of the temple to show this beautiful spectacle to the audience and to re-broadcast the artistic performance that was presented on Monday evening.
The show also shed light on the life story of King Ramses II, the Battle of Kadesh, and the first peace treaty ever struck in history, which was written on the walls of his temple. This is in addition to launching several luminous flying balloons to decorate and beautify the lighting of the sky above Abu Simbel at night, sending a message of love and peace to the whole world from Abu Simbel on this special day.
The artistic performance on Monday night was followed by the Ministry of Culture’s closing ceremony of the activities of the ninth session of the Aswan International Festival for Culture and Arts, which was co-sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, during which it presented a distinguished cultural artistic show under the title ‘Mawal Al-Shams’, which presented folkloric performances from across Egypt.
Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anany explained that the phenomenon of the solar alignment on Abu Simbel Temple is a unique astronomical and engineering marvel of the ancient world.
He also mentioned that the temple deserves to be the eighth wonder of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as the story of its discovery and the inscriptions on its walls and colours are extraordinary.
