First Rediscovery

Of course, over time, the temples stopped being used, eventually becoming covered by the dessert sand. By the 6th century BC, the Great Temple was already covered in sand up to the knees of the statues, and both temples were eventually forgotten until rediscovered in the early 1900's.
Abu Simbel was reportedly first rediscovered in 1813 by a Swiss scholar named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. History says that as he was preparing to leave the area of Lake Nasser, by traveling down the Nile, Burckhardt came over the mountain and saw the front of the great temple, the rest of it having been buried in the sand. Burckhardt told his friend (Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni) and Belzoni joined him at the site to help with the excavation. The two were unable to dig out the entrance of the temple.
Belzoni returned four years later, with the English explorer and Egyptologist William John Bankes, and was able to reveal the entrance and to enter the base of the monument, taking every small item of value with him when he left. Many believe that the name given to the temples, Abu Simbel, comes from a young local boy who had seen the buried temples through the shifting sands, and purportedly guided Burckhardt to the temples.