More than sixty years ago, the largest archaeological operation of all time was organized, the displacement of Nubia by the flooding of the Nile to build the Aswan Dam. But it was not a full transfer. The Temple of Debod, for example, ended up in Madrid
62 years have passed since an event that lasted for two decades: the Nubia Monuments Rescue Campaign launched by UNESCO. The campaign was the set of actions that were carried out urgently to save the heritage in that desert region located in the Middle Nile Valley.
50 countries contributed funds and human effort to prevent the flooding, with the construction of the Aswan dam, of the most emblematic temples, from Abu Simbel to Philé, over 3,000 years old.
From then on, every subsequent campaign was and is the result of international cooperation. Throughout the years that it lasted, hundreds of sites were discovered and inventoried, and large groups of cultural assets for Humanity were recovered. A population sequence of 50,000 years was covered, within which the old theory of occupational gaps and the constant arrival of new people to explain the cultural changes that occurred in the area was largely overcome. Thus, it was possible to build the prehistory and history of that important African region: Nubia.
the feat
On March 8, 1960, the then Director General of UNESCO, Vittorino Veronese, made the official appeal for such safeguarding purposes. From then until 1964, when the first villages -such as Debod- were evicted, to progressively start the flooding, intensive surveys and excavations were carried out both in Sudan and Egypt.
In just four years the waters would begin to flood the area. Its development, execution and results have been loaded with more epithets than any other archaeological work: great undertaking, epic, unparalleled feat to rescue one of the most splendid legacies in history, etc. All this in an epic tone that still permeates him today to describe the technical, human and financial deployment that took place to save that heritage.
The most publicized transfers were the dismantling of the temples of Abu Simbel, that of Ramses II and his wife Nefertari. The rock was sectioned into huge blocks of sandstone and the temples were erected again at a height 70 meters higher, away from the floodwaters.
In 1980, the archaeological, epigraphic, temple transfer and restoration and preventive conservation works in Nubia were officially terminated. The final climax was the inauguration of the last temples of Philé that were relocated and conditioned on the island of Agilkia, upstream from current Aswan.
Political tensions and new alliances
However, the setting was not idyllic and cordial. It shows tense political relations between Egypt and the “imperialist powers”, using the language of the time.
Egypt was a country that wanted to get rid of Western companies, military bases and foreign evangelical missions installed in its territory. He was seeking his position in a free world far removed, above all, from Great Britain. For this reason, it ended up tipping the balance towards friendly relations and geopolitical, economic and strategic interests with the Soviet Union.
On the one hand, the Arab country had been angry with the United States since its refusal in 1956 to finance the dam construction project. And on the other, the United States blamed President Gamal Abdel Nasser for his flirtation with the USSR. But the UAR (United Arab Republic formed by Egypt and Syria) was determined to carry out the project of modernization of the country, hence it looked for these other allies. Finally, and despite everything, the Americans ended up granting the not inconsiderable amount of 4.3 million pounds sterling added to the 5 million that UNESCO contributed for the salvage of the monuments of Abu Simbel and Filé, for the dam project .
There are voices that justify this shift in US policy due to UNESCO’s decision to offer them a temple of the rescued, such as that of Dendur, which ended up in the Metropolitan Museum (MET) in New York.
Political propaganda for Nasser
From left to right: Nasser, Khrushchev, Arif and as-Sallal in May 1964 in Egypt, pressing the button that would open the Aswan Dam. CC BY
The construction of the Aswan Dam was a propaganda campaign in favor of Nasser’s Egypt. So much so that his last name would give its name to the lake itself that was created.
Arab nationalism was growing exponentially and the president was gaining ground. As it was imperative to flood the territory, he forcibly transferred hundreds of inhabitants from both shores and from both sides of the border. Sudan, which initially opposed it, ended up agreeing to the construction of the dam that would also affect its territory.
The Nubian population migrated to the new Wadi Halfa, to Cairo and to Alexandria, in Egypt; and to Khasm El Girba in Sudan, hundreds of kilometers from their places of origin. Even to countries as far away as Kenya.
The civil work was granted to the Soviet Union and hundreds of Slavic workers together with the Egyptians worked at extremely high temperatures, in terrible conditions and without labor rights.
The high price that many human beings paid for the rest of humanity to contemplate today the temples saved from the waters deserves to be remembered along with the investigations of social anthropology, key works to study and preserve traditional cultures, narratives, beliefs, folklore, music, crafts, etc. of those people in the diaspora.
The end of the Spanish participation in those international works was the delivery, management and transfer of the temple of Debod, whose fiftieth anniversary was commemorated in July 2022. The monument has become an appropriation of Nubia memory by visitors who have made it their own, appearing as the oldest monument in the capital.
A look from the present
From a current perspective, this procedure and the transfer of monuments to other countries are considered very inappropriate, because they remain detached and decontextualized from their original environment.
However, these days are good times for new narratives. And for the Nubian Campaign too. Today’s society rethinks and analyzes not only the remote past: what we were like, what we made, what we ate, how we related to each other or what products were traded, etc., but also the recent past. A “past-present” of which we have abundant historiographical information on contemporary events in which we analyze, through existing documentation: what, who, how, where and why things were done that way and not otherwise.
This article has been published in ‘ The conversation’.