Celebrations of Abu Simbel’s solar alignment cancelled

CAIRO - 21 October 2017: All artistic events scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the Abu Simbel’s Sun Festival are to be canceled after a terrorist attack that targeted dozens of police personnel in Egypt’s Western Desert on Friday, announced the general director of Abu Simbel Antiquities Department, Hossam Abboud in a statement Saturday.

On Saturday evening, Aswan governorate, in Upper Egypt, will celebrate the alignment of the sun on King Ramses II's face, a phenomenon that occurs twice a year, the first occurs around February 22, marking his coronation, and around October 22, marking his birthday.

This year’s phenomenon of solar alignment will mark Egypt's 200th anniversary of the discovery of the Abu Simbel temples by the Swiss oriental traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt on March 22, 1813.

Festival activities will be limited to watching the phenomenon of the solar alignment and opening the temple to foreign and Egyptian visitors, Abboud said in a statement to Egypt Today.

Celebrations were supposed to take place on Saturday and Sunday and were to include a number of folklore dancing shows in Abu Simbel’s square.

On Friday, dozens of police officers were killed and others injured while on the hunt for terrorists in Giza’s Al-Bahariya Oasis, security sources said. The sources added that the security forces headed to the oasis after receiving information that some terrorist elements were taking shelter there. Security forces clashed and exchanged fire with the terrorists, with both sides suffering deaths and injuries.