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Beit Al Wali

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Location:

It is located South of Aswan High Dam, near Kalabsha temple in New Kalabsha area, at Aswan.

Who built it?
It is considers one of Ramesses II Nubian monument.


Why it was built?
It was built to dedicate to God Amon and other Gods.

Explanation:

Beit el-Wali was rescued from Lake Nasser by a Polish archaeological team financed by a joint Oriental Institute of Chicago/Swiss Institute of Cairo Project.

The temple itself was built on a symmetrical cruciform plan. It is consisted of a deep hall, a transverse antechamber with two columns and a sanctuary. Known as a speos, the temple was mostly hewn from the surrounding rock, except for the front wall of the deep hall with its central doorway.

There are reliefs on the deep hall considerable historic value because they provide depictions of the Syrian, Libyan, and Ramesses II's triumph over the Nubians. The scenes of the Nubian campaigns depict several sons of Ramesses II engaged in the battle.

There is a central doorway, which was later added, that communicates with a transverse antechamber. Its rock ceiling is supported by two architrave oriented north-south, supported by two sturdy fluted columns. These columns are rather unusual, being a type known as "proto-Doric", with four vertical plane sides, inscribed, having entices, a blank horizontal fillet at the top, and a square abacus.

At each end of this transverse hall in the rear wall is a niche containing a statuary group consisting of Ramesses II between two deities, from the rear wall of the antechamber, a single doorway leads to the single sanctuary, in the rear wall of this chamber, a niche with three statues representing Ramesses II between two deities, is cut into the wall.

There are many opinions on the art on the temples. Archaeologists have suggested that there were as many as four stages of construction resulting in this small temple, and perhaps as many as three artists whose hands sculpted the walls. During the early Coptic era, the temple was transformed into a church.
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