In 1964, one of the largest and most spectacular demolition and reorganization projects in the history of world heritage conservation was carried out in Egypt. In order to save the Abu Simbel Temple from the rising waters of the Nile, people had to relocate the temple.
The Abu Simbel Temple was built more than 3,000 years ago with two temples on the hillside. The larger of the two temples has four huge seated statues of Pharaoh Ramses II (1303–1213 BC) at the entrance, each about 69 feet (21 m) tall.
On October 22 and February 22 of each year, the sun shines into the inner sanctum and illuminates the three statues sitting on benches, including a pharaoh. Historians believe that these dates mark his coronation and birth. In addition, the Abu Simbel Temple has a smaller temple attached to it, built for Queen Nefertari. Its façade features two statues of queens and four statues of pharaohs, each about 33 feet (10 meters) high, each set between a buttress with hieroglyphs engraved on it.
Although the site was built by Egyptian rulers and is located within the territory of modern Egypt, in ancient times the place where it was located was considered part of Nubia, a place that was once independent of ancient Egypt.
Over time, the temple was abandoned and eventually covered in sand. By the 6th century BC, sand had covered the statues of the main temples, up to their knees. It was not until 1813, when the Swiss orientalist Jean-Louis Burckhardt discovered the top frieze of the main temple, that the vanished temple reappeared.
Burckhardt talked about his discovery with the Italian explorer Giovanni Belzoni, who had been to the site but had failed to dig out the entrance to the temple. Berzoni returned in 1817, this time he managed to enter the complex.
By the 1960s, Egypt began construction of the Aswan Dam to control Nile flooding and provide electricity for a rapidly modernizing Egypt. Nearly 24 archaeological sites have had to be transferred to protect themselves from the rising water levels of the newly formed Lake Nasser, with the popular Philae Temple being one such place, but the challenge of the Abu Simbel Temple is more epic.
The new site extends inland by about 200 meters above sea level.
Under UNESCO supervision, the monumental statue of Ramses II was carefully cut into a series of 20-ton stones and slowly moved off the lake one by one before being reassembled into a specially constructed artificial cliff like a giant game of Tetris.
Using tools ranging from hand saws to bulldozers, statues and temples were carved into 20-ton stone blocks and then reassembled at new sites.
The reassembly requires extreme precision with tolerances of only plus or minus 5 mm
Teams from five continents carried out 40 projects to relocate 22 monuments and complexes.
The whole process took four years and cost the equivalent of $300 million today. But the measurements of this relocation are so precise that every February and October, the rising sun will shine light into the interior of the temple, illuminating the inner sanctum of the sun god, just as it was when the temple was built.
The relocation was done under the supervision of Polish archaeologist Kazimierz Michałowski.
A scale model of the Nubian Museum in Aswan that shows the original and present location of the temple (relative to the water level).