Imagination, design, technique: three European projects for Abu Simbel

Figure 1: Great Temple of Abu Simbel, preliminary design (1960), Italconsult, Impresit & Lodigiani, cont.: Sketch of facade rock fissures Source: Enrico Lodigiani private archives, Milan March 1813. On his way back from a journey in Nubia, John Lewis Burckhardt noted four statues emerging from the sand: “They do not front the river […] but are turned with their faces due north, towards the most fertile climes of Egypt […]. On the rock wall, in the center of the four statues, is the figure of..