If Abu Simbel had not been saved, places like Vienna's Historic Centre, Cambodia's Angkor Wat and other Unesco World Heritage sites might only live on in history books.
Deep within the interior of the Great Temple at Abu Simbel, carved into a mountainside in southern Egypt's ancient Nubian Valley, lies a vast, wondrous world. Pillars adorned with intricate military artworks support a ceiling painted with winged vultures. Floor-to-ceiling hieroglyphics depicting the victorious battles of Pharaoh Ramses II, the same man responsible for constructing this enormous temple, decorate the walls. Outside, four colossal statues of the pharaoh face east toward the rising sun, looking out over a crystal-clear lake.
The Great Temple, built by Pharaoh Ramses II, features floor-to-ceiling hieroglyphics (Credit: EmmePi Travel/Alamy)
Unesco’s ‘Nubia Campaign’ came about in 1960, when the United Arab Republic (a political union of Egypt and Syria that existed between 1958 and 1961) began construction on a new dam along the Nile River, just outside of Aswan. While the dam would improve irrigation throughout the valley as well as significantly increase Egypt's hydroelectric output, in a few years the swelling waters would also completely submerge Abu Simbel's exquisite temples.
In an effort to prevent the temples’ destruction, Unesco embarked on its first-ever collaborative international rescue effort (the organisation initially formed in 1945 to promote
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