The Great temple
of Abu simbel"
damage minimized" 2013 Painted by Yasser Kamel.
The
overwhelming impression that Abu Simbel cause once to be viewed has no match ,
just a single glimpse on its stunning façade which exceeds 40.M high and
spotting the four colossal statutes of the great Ramses which are about 20.M
high is a mind boggling moment! Such remote and complete temple that goes back
to 1200 B.C and left with intact colours for the interior and minimal damage
for the exterior ,then its engineering based astronomy which allowed its
architects to align the statue of Ramses II in its innermost room to the sun
rise on two certain and special days for the king. One of the days is supposed
to be his birthday and the other is supposed to be his coronation day! Originally the dates were the 21st
of February and the 21st of October which were missed by UNECCO saving project
of Abu Simbel between the years 1964-1968 and the phenomenal sun shine on
Ramses II face became a day forward for each date. However the great efforts
exerted by the rescue team to make a perfect a transfer and reconstruction into
a safe spot from the growing man-made lake Naser with a cost exceeded 50
million USD, it failed to re-angle the great Abu Simbel in the right position to
keep its aligning with sun accomplished ! The other great challenge and obstacle
from an artistic and architectural perspective, is to reveal the method that
possibly followed by the artist in order to stereotype such four identical and
gigantic statues of the pharaoh .
Abu-Simbel-Francois-Gau-1819
The
possible scope that the artist could have on the narrow Nile bank for Abu
Simbel would be too much vertical in
vision than it is required to make a
good judge on the statues proportions which make his task rather impossible.
An imaginary stone
print created by a metal stencil. Painted and designed by Yasser Kamel.
The scope of the giant Abu Simbel which naked eyes never can
comprehend or realize would force the artist to count on different tools,
implements and methods to help him to carry out his plan. The ancient Egyptians
were familiar with moulds and stencils methods which enabled to create such
stereotyped carvings and specifically the repetitive Hieroglyphic characters. Ideally two
dimensional-metal stencils are suggested for the use in order to accomplish
accuracy and the identicalness. Based on my
experience of sketching a part of the Great Abu Simbel on very small scale I believe
that such enormous statues would never become identical without following such
method!. Written and painted by Yasser kamel for
Museumegypt.2006@.All rights reserved.
