Amada Temple

Amada was built under Thutmose III and Amenhotep II in the fifteenth century BC and finished by Thutmose IV, which makes it the oldest temple still standing in Nubia. Its reliefs kept an unusual amount of their original paint, and that created a problem in the salvage campaign: cutting the temple into blocks would have destroyed the painted surfaces. The solution was to move the whole building intact, jacked up on a rail system and hauled some two and a half kilometres to higher ground, an operation quite different from the block-by-block method used elsewhere. Two other monuments stand at the new site: the rock-cut temple of Derr, and the relocated tomb of Pennut, a Nubian official of the Twentieth Dynasty, with decorated chambers.

What you actually see

• Painted New Kingdom reliefs - colour surviving from the fifteenth century BC.
• A temple moved whole on rails - hauled intact rather than cut into blocks.
• The rock temple of Derr - a second relocated sanctuary alongside.
• The tomb of Pennut - a Nubian official's decorated burial chambers.

When to go

October to April. Two hours ashore on a Lake Nasser cruise itinerary. Landings are scheduled by the boat. Morning light suits the painted interiors.

Honest expectations

Access is effectively cruise-only. Interiors are dim and photography is restricted to protect the paint. Time ashore is short and fixed. There is no shade at the landing and no facilities of any kind.

Nearby

Wadi es-Sebua is north along the lake; Qasr Ibrim lies south.