You may never have heard of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910) but he is better known by his pen name Mark Twain.

He was an American author and humorist. He is most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885),the latter often called “the Great American Novel.”

He is also held in high regard for his many profound quotes and observations on life.

Twain was born during a visit by Halley’s Comet, and he predicted that he would “go out with it” as well. He died the day following the comet’s subsequent return.

I find it interesting to reference this attached quote to an Egyptian tomb that I visited at Abu Symbel.

The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari, to commemorate his alleged victory at the Battle of Kadesh, and to intimidate his Nubian neighbors. However, the complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir.

The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. Abu Simbel remains one of Egypt’s top tourist attractions.

What is particularly amazing is that they constructed this tomb with hand tools, yet they angled the floor upwards and the ceiling downwards towards the back of the temple. On the back wall of the inner chamber they drew the four Gods, plus the Pharoah himself, the God on Earth.

They aligned it all so that twice each year a beam of sunlight goes through the front door, through the public chamber, through the High Priests’ chamber and into the Pharoah’s sanctum, illuminating the face of the Pharoah – once on the anniversary of his birth and once on the anniversary of his coronation.

Were those guys amazingly clever or what?

Perhaps those were the days when the Pharoah was born and the day he found out why?

Have you found your ‘why’ yet?