Temples of Amada

The Temple of Amada holds a very special title: it is the oldest surviving Egyptian temple in Nubia. Dating back around 3,400 years, this historical treasure predates Abu Simbel and Ramesses II by more than two centuries, offering a pure look into the golden peak of the 18th Dynasty.

👑 Built by Three Generations of Kings

Unlike temples dedicated to just one pharaoh, Amada was a continuous family project built by three successive rulers during the New Kingdom:

• The Founders: The core sandstone structure and the innermost sanctuaries were co-built by the great conqueror Thutmose III and his son Amenhotep II. They dedicated the temple to the supreme gods Amun-Ra and Ra-Horakhty.
• The Extender: Thutmose IV (the grandson) later added a roof over the open front courtyard, transforming it into a beautiful, pillared Hypostyle Hall.

🎨 The Most Vibrant Colors in Nubia

From the outside, Amada looks quite small and plain. However, stepping inside feels like entering a completely different world:

• Flawless Preserved Reliefs: The walls are covered in incredibly fine, painted reliefs showing the kings embracing the gods.
• The Plaster Shield: Just like Wadi El Seboua, early Christians turned Amada into a church in the 6th century AD. They coated the walls with mud and plaster to hide the pharaonic images. This layer accidentally acted as a time capsule, sealing the original 3,400-year-old colors from light and air until they were uncovered in modern times. [1]

📜 The Famous Bloodstained Stela

Inside the temple’s rear wall rests a famous historical monument: the Stela of Amenhotep II. It contains a fierce military inscription detailing the pharaoh’s campaigns in Syria. It vividly describes how he personally executed seven enemy kings with his mace, hung six of their bodies on the walls of Thebes, and hung the seventh on the walls of Nubia as a terrifying warning against rebellion.

🚊 The Miracle Rescue: A Temple on Rails

During the 1960s UNESCO rescue campaign, Amada presented a massive problem. The temple’s painted interior was so fragile that if engineers sliced it into individual blocks (like they did with Abu Simbel), the historic art would crumble and be lost forever.

Instead, French engineers pulled off a miracle: they bound the entire temple together with steel bands, placed it on top of massive concrete beams, raised it with hydraulic jacks, and moved the entire 800-ton temple intact on railroad tracks. They rolled it 2.5 kilometers inland and 65 meters higher up to its new home, known today as New Amada.

🚗 How to Visit

• The Complex: Today, New Amada hosts three rescued monuments grouped closely together: the Temple of Amada, the rock-cut Temple of Derr (built by Ramesses II), and the painted Tomb of Pennut.
• Access: Because of its remote desert location, it can only be visited via Lake Nasser cruise ships sailing between Aswan and Abu Simbel.
• Opening Hours: Open daily from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM.