BU 
IMBELErected under Pharaoh Ramses II, the Greater Abu Simbel Temple facade is 33 meters high and 38 meters broad, guarded by four statues of Ramses II, each of which is 20 meters high.
It was the Swiss traveler John Lewis Burckhardt who, in 1813, while in Nubia disguised as a Syrian merchant by the name of Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah, first saw and described the site of Abu Simbel, or Ipsambal, as he called it.
The very existence of Abu Simbel seems to have faded from men's memories. None of the classical authors, Greek or Roman, speaks of it. In 1799 the Nubian Haggi Mohammed, when questioned by the scholars on the French expedition, drew up a long list of Nubian villages between the First and the Second Cataract; he cites "Absimbil," but mentions no ruins, while specifying their existence at numerous other sites whose temples are of much less importance than those of Abu Simbel.
When, following the instructions given him by local Arabs, Burckhardt finally reached Abu Simbel on 22 March 1813, he approached it by the high desert plateau and, making his way down into the valley, visited the Small Temple, that of Queen Nefertari, which was the only one he had heard mentioned. He described this shrine at length in his journal, and then added: "Having, as I imagined, seen all Ipsambal's antiquities, I was preparing to return by the same path that I had taken on my way down when, by great good fortune, taking a slight detour to the south, I came across what remains visible of four vast colossal statues hewn out of the mountainside some 256 feet from the temple [of Nefertari]. They stand in a deep cutting in the mountainside. It is a great pity that they are now almost entirely covered in sand. An entire head and part of the breast and arms of one of the statues emerge still above the surface. Of the adjacent statue, thee is almost nothing to be seen, since its head has broken off and its body is covered in sand to above shoulder level. Of the two others, only their headdresses are visible. It is difficult to decide whether these statues are seated or standing."
Thus, in 1813, the Nubians themselves no longer knew about the Great Temple, and the latter was buried so deep in sand that Burckhardt was not even sure whether it actually existed. In his own words, "Against the rock wall, in the midst of the four colossi, is the statue of Osiris, with his falcon head surmounted by a disc, and, beneath this statue, if we could move away the sand, I suspect that we might find a huge temple, with the four colossal statues probably serving to decorate the entrance."
In 1817, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, after three weeks' labor, was able to uncover enough of the entrance to gain passage. "From what we could perceive at the first view, it was evidently a very large place; but our astonishment increased, when we found it be to one of the most magnificent of temples, enriched with beautiful intaglios, painting, colossal figures, etc." Belzoni describes the three side chambers, which were decorated in the most brilliant colors, then notes that the heat was such (about 115 F in fact) that they had great trouble in even making a few sketches. The four men ran out of supplies and had to leave Abu Simbel on 3 August, but as souvenirs they took with them "two life-size lions with hawks' heads, a small sitting figure, and some copper work belonging to the doors" (all now in the British Museum). Belzoni had hoped for even greater wonders.
--Discoveries series: The Search for Ancient Egypt, English translation copyright 1992 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York
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