Temple of Nefertari, Abu Simbel

What is the Temple of Nefertari?

It is a rock-cut temple that Ramesses II dedicated jointly to the goddess Hathor and to his principal wife, Nefertari, cut into the same sandstone ridge as his own Great Temple. Egyptologists usually call it the Small Temple, but it is only small by comparison with its neighbour: its colossi are about half the height of the Great Temple's seated giants.

Nefertari was the first and best-loved of Ramesses' great royal wives. She appears beside him on monuments from the start of his reign, wrote to the Hittite queen during the peace negotiations that followed the Battle of Kadesh, and disappears from the record around the middle of his 66-year reign. Her painted tomb, QV66, is the showpiece of the Valley of the Queens in Luxor; our guide to Nefertari tells her story in full.

Like its neighbour, the temple was cut into blocks and rebuilt on higher ground in the 1960s to escape Lake Nasser. The general Abu Simbel page covers the Great Temple and the logistics of the visit; this page is about the queen's temple itself.

What makes the facade so unusual?

Nefertari is carved at exactly the same height as the king, about 10 metres, which almost never happens in Egyptian royal art. Queens were normally shown knee-high beside their husbands. Here six standing colossi step out of niches in the cliff: on each side of the doorway, a statue of Nefertari stands between two of Ramesses.

• The queen's figures wear the tall plumes, sun disc and cow horns of Hathor, a visual statement that she shares the goddess's role.
• The children: small figures of princes stand beside the king's legs and princesses beside the queen's, among them Meritamun, who later became a royal wife herself.
• The buttresses between the statues carry deeply cut hieroglyphs. The dedication says Ramesses made the temple for Nefertari, often translated as the queen "for whose sake the sun rises", though wording varies between translations.

The statues lean slightly back into the cliff and the buttresses throw strong vertical shadows, so the whole front looks best in low morning light.

What should you look for inside?

Inside, look for the six Hathor pillars, the queen's sistrum-shaking reliefs, the coronation scene with Hathor and Isis, and the cow of Hathor emerging from the sanctuary wall. The interior is compact: one pillared hall, a transverse vestibule with two side rooms, and a small sanctuary.

The pillared hall

Six square pillars carry the face of Hathor, with cow's ears, on the side facing the central aisle; the other faces show the king, the queen and gods. On the walls, Ramesses smites a Nubian and a Libyan enemy while Nefertari stands behind him, slender and calm, which is a rare place to find a queen. Elsewhere she shakes a sistrum, the rattle sacred to Hathor, and offers flowers to Anuket, the goddess of the First Cataract near Aswan.

The vestibule and sanctuary

The best-known relief is in the vestibule: Nefertari stands between Hathor and Isis, who place a crown of horns, disc and plumes on her head. In the sanctuary, Hathor as a cow steps out of the rock above the figure of the king, protecting him. Look for traces of original colour, especially the yellow ochre backgrounds and blue in the wigs.

Why is the Temple of Nefertari special?

It is one of very few temples in ancient Egypt dedicated to a living queen, and the only one most travellers will ever see. The closest precedent is the temple Amenhotep III built for Queen Tiye at Sedeinga, now in Sudan. Ramesses was making a theological point as well as a personal one: by linking Nefertari with Hathor, goddess of love, music and the sky, he presented the royal couple as a divine pair watching over Nubia.

The carving is also different in mood from the Great Temple. Where the larger temple is about war and kingship, with the Battle of Kadesh across its walls, the Small Temple is about devotion: figures are tall and willowy, the poses gentle and the scenes mostly offerings and music. Many visitors find it the more beautiful of the two.

How do you fit it into an Abu Simbel visit?

Allow 30–45 minutes, and visit it either first thing or straight after the Great Temple, before the late-morning heat. It sits a short, flat walk north along the shore from the Great Temple, both facing east across Lake Nasser.

• Getting there: Abu Simbel is about 280 km south of Aswan, roughly 3.5 hours by road or about 45 minutes by air; our guide to Abu Simbel by road or air compares the two.
• Beat the queue: most groups go to the Great Temple first, so the Small Temple is often quieter for the first half-hour after opening.
• Light: the facade is sunlit in the morning and in shade by afternoon.
• Tickets: at the time of writing one Abu Simbel ticket covers both temples. Check current prices and rules, including photography, on egymonuments.gov.eg.

Before you go, read how both temples were cut up and moved in Saving Abu Simbel; the joins in the facade make much more sense once you know the story.

Tips for seeing the Small Temple well

Go slowly, look up and use your guide's time inside rather than outside, because the reliefs are the point.

• Stand back towards the lake for photographs of the whole facade, with the cliff above it for scale.
• Inside, the light is dim and even. Let your eyes adjust for a minute before you start looking for colour.
• Find the scene of Nefertari offering to Anuket and compare her figure with the king's: the sculptors gave her the same weight in the composition.
• If you stay overnight in Abu Simbel village, return at opening time the next morning, when you may have the temple almost to yourself.
• In summer, carry water: there is little shade on the forecourt and temperatures pass 40°C by late morning.