Egypt’s ancient temples rescued from the Nile 50 years ago 1 SHARES Share it! The temples are among the jewels of the ancient Nubia region that extended down the Nile from Aswan in southern Egypt into present-day Sudan. – Threatened by Nile dam –In the 1950s, Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser launched a project to dam the mighty Nile at Aswan in order to generate electricity for the region, increase cultivable land and reduce flooding. The Abu Simbel temples were cut into 1,035 blocks each weighing between 20 and 30 tonnes. About 20 temples, statues and monuments known as “the jewel of the Nile” were dismantled and transported, stone-by-stone, to the nearby Agilkia island, on higher ground.

Source: Manila Bulletin September 20, 2018 09:56 UTC