Egypt: Saving the temples on the Nile | DW Documentary

[Music] egypt's rich and fascinating history dates back thousands of years celebrating the pharaohs and the magnificent monuments they built the pyramids were just one example of their legacy [Music] the 19th century explorers were astonished to discover ancient temples in southern egypt the power that the pharaohs wielded extended all along the nile even through the vastness of the sahara desert here in nubia they built enormous structures that defied the forces of man and nature for thousands of years in the 1960s when the decision was taken to construct one of the largest dams in the world the fate of the temples seemed to be sealed they were to be submerged beneath the surface of a huge artificial lake their rescue from the nile waters was possible due to international cooperation and the efforts of many thousands of people [Music] it took over two decades of unprecedented effort in order to save the monuments with unique technical solutions some of the rescue temples can be admired at lake nasa whilst others were transported thousands of kilometers to europe or the us [Music] our journey through southern egypt takes us to these world cultural heritage treasures [Music] the nile flows through egypt to the mediterranean it is both a waterway and a source of irrigation the ancient egyptians saw it as a gift from the gods one of the most impressive and advanced civilizations of ancient times surfaced on its banks [Music] aswan is located deep in the south of egypt and has long been a border between upper egypt and the interior of africa part of ancient nubia lies here buried in the sand these days the region belongs partly to both egypt and sudan in former times the borders were natural the granite rock rapids of the cataracts of the nile [Music] nubia was strategically interesting to the egyptians due to the gold ivory ebony and slaves the nubian kings were also known as the kings of the kingdom of cush they were sometimes allies to the pharaohs and sometimes foe between 400 bc and 300 a.d meroi with its pyramid complexes was the capital of cush [Music] at the end of the 4th century bc the pharaohs established a vast kingdom that stretched from the nile delta in the north to the first nile cataract in the south the egyptians built a series of fortresses to control the remote area and border but the kings wanted to expand even further [Music] nubia was gradually conquered by egypt with its soldiers enslaved or forced to fight for the egyptian army egyptian dominance was underlined by the fortresses and temples they built in the area in the 18th century european explorers traveled up the nile to sudan it was a revelation here in the little known south of egypt dozens of ancient sites were found that had been hidden for millennia huge sanctuaries tombs and temples carved into the rock buildings commissioned by the pharaohs as well as those of the greeks and romans fascinated with their size their colours and the mysteries that surrounded their history this rich nubian heritage was threatened with destruction in the 1960s the water levels of the nile were rising unprecedentedly mainly due to human intervention egypt's population was exploding urbanization and modernization of the country were the political challenges of the time the annual flooding of the nile was hindering these developments and egyptians no longer wanted to be dependent on the whims of the river in 1954 egyptian president kamal abdul nasser decided to build a new dam in aswan the mammoth project would not only be one of the largest river structures ever but also one of the most expensive [Music] barrages to finance the dam construction egypt asked western countries for help the us and england offered the prospect of 70 million dollars with financing from the world bank but a crisis ensued in the middle of the cold war egypt insisted on its policy of neutrality and its right to buy weapons from czechoslovakia the united states withdrew its offers world bank financing was therefore no longer an option to nationalize the british french suez canal company in 1956 stating if they don't finance our dam we will pay for it with the revenues from the suez canal this led to the suez war between egypt france israel and england with u.n mediation the crisis ended with the withdrawal of britain and france egypt moved increasingly closer to the soviet union which provided the resources and technicians to get the dam project off the ground a monument to the south of aswan commemorates the treaty and the construction of the dam from it the entire dam can be seen the result of 11 years of construction by around 36 000 workers [Music] the as1 dam is 111 meters high from east to west it has a crest length of 3830 meters and is 980 meters wide at the base for its construction 43 million cubic meters of excavation earth and rock had to be dumped into the old riverbed that's 17 times the amount of material used for the kiops pyramid the dam has created a gigantic water reservoir upstream lake nasa over 500 kilometers long with an area of 5 250 square kilometers more than 100 000 people had to be resettled in sudan and egypt some of the people were accommodated in newly built villages others moved elsewhere in egypt especially cairo or they went abroad a huge expanse of water now covers ancient nubia the landscape is grandiose and tragic at the same time the almost deserted shores are overlooked by rocky mountains they once marked the edge of the sahara plateau these small islands now surrounded by dangerous shoals were mountain peaks 50 years ago [Music] our elders tell us that before the dam you could navigate as if on a canal or river it was easy to get from one place to another because the nile in nubia was not very wide there were small waves and at night they navigated by the stars at that time there were no maps or gps they knew all the villages and stopped where they wanted to and then continued onto aswan or wadi halfa crossing lake nasa means following the architectural footsteps of the pharaohs in the mid-1950s news of the construction of the dam set off an archaeological race egyptologists from all over the world only had a limited amount of time to explore the nile valley a valley harboring thousands of years of human history [Music] but scientists only managed to excavate a third of the archaeological sites before the rising water level made further excavations impossible the dam project triggered a worldwide debate about the fate of nubia's treasures how does one decide between cultural heritage and further development between food security and preserving remnants of the past media reports were pessimistic about egypt's chances of saving so many monuments some foresaw future temple visits by diving only the reality was even more dramatic many of the monuments were hewn from easily fractured rock they would be destroyed forever a flood plan for the area forecasted the exact date when the pharonic masterpieces would disappear french egyptologist christian de roche nogleico decided to act she was an experienced excavation director in egypt and was not afraid to speak out against the consequences of damn construction at that moment i had a real problem the egyptians said we're going to sacrifice nubia's temples nubia was going to become this huge reservoir of water which would have destroyed everything that was completely unacceptable to me so i said to them you have to find another solution if we see it filled short what are you talking about that's how they are the egyptians i said give me a few days to find competent people you can't sacrifice the area just because you think you need it [Music] saving the temples of nubia in such an explosive context required having a neutral authority to oversee things cristian de roche noble core ensured that the problem became an international issue she was a person very well known in egypt she talked personally to mr nasa and she was also friends with the director-general of unesco through her connections i think the whole story came together because she convinced everybody that this is a heritage which needs to be preserved for future generations unesco had been founded a few years earlier and were encouraged to get involved the decision to save the monuments of nubia was made at the unesco headquarters in paris [Music] today on march the 8th 1960 the nations despite some of them being involved in covert or overt conflicts have agreed for the first time to join forces to save the cultural heritage of a vanished civilization there were calls of support and funding from around the world the temples of the nile must be saved the unusual campaign stoked the interest of many young people who then got involved [Music] i was very young back then maybe eleven or are you doing in school at that age you're learning about egypt i was watching tv one night and i heard the reaction of our minister of culture to the unesco appeal i was incredibly moved the next day i asked my school if we could raise money to save the nubian monuments it was an extraordinary action and a groundbreaking campaign countries normally tended to only preserve their own heritage they weren't interested in saving other countries then unesco intervened and launched their famous appeal to all nations of the world we must help egypt save these monuments because they don't belong to egypt alone they belong to the history of all mankind [Music] in egypt various leaders started moving to save the country's heritage culture minister farwat okasha was aware of the west's fascination with ancient egypt to promote the rescue campaign he sent the treasures of tutankhamun the most famous pharaoh on a travelling exhibition as far away as the united states [Music] around the world the public started taking notice stamps with pictures of the threatened temples were issued in some countries soon money from all corners of the globe flowed into the rescue project a unifying action despite the cold war unesco is an agency which brings together people around the table because we are a technical agency we don't deal with politics we deal with actually actions on the ground to safeguard the heritage to preserve the environment to ensure communication among the different countries and to ensure dialogue diplomacy and support for technical solutions can take many years and work on the dam was already intensifying [Music] back in 1813 the swiss jean-louis burkhart discovered abu simbel his notes describe a huge temple between the desert and the nile with majestic statues emerging from the sand and guarding a temple entrance in france the young linguist jean-francois chompillo studied the detailed drawings of the temple's inscriptions he succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphs and realized that abu simbel was a temple in honour of the pharaoh ramses ii born in the 13th century bc ramses ii was one of the great kings of egypt after the battle of kadesh against the hittites he had a monument built for himself and several gods in nubia the complex of abu simbel is carved out of the rock the facade is 40 meters wide and about 30 meters high four colossal statues of ramses ii are 20 meters high the first room has colossal statues representing ramses ii in the form of the god osiris hieroglyphics and images of the pharaoh cover the walls the ancient egyptians created a series of rooms in a straight line leading to the most sacred sanctuary twice a year the sun rises in perfect line with the entrance to the monument its rays penetrate the temple and illuminate it all the way to the sacred chamber only the statue of the creator god remains in darkness [Music] without the magnificent rescue operation involving thousands of people in the 1960s these imposing temples which are still almost completely intact could not be able to be visited today [Music] has a special connection to abu simbel his grandfather was rene ma director general of unesco [Music] is part of my family history in the 1960s my grandfather worked on the rescue operation this is the first time i visited the site and it's very moving to finally see the temples as i've heard about abu simbel since i was a child my grandmother always used to tell me about the project i wanted to get a better idea of what the rescue operation actually means bringing so many nations together to apply such restoration techniques in the desert and win the race against time is a real feat the temples of abu simbel are rock temples everything from the huge statues at the entrance through to the smaller ones within has been carved out of the stone which means that dismantling and preserving them without damaging them was a momentous task [Music] with the economic growth in the 1960s technological progress had made a number of large-scale constructions possible dams highways bridges for engineers nothing seemed impossible to save the temples of abu simbel unesco issued an international call for proposals several propositions were submitted unesco is primarily a forum for the exchange of knowledge of technology and know-how [Music] in order to save the temples there was extensive correspondence between our unesco nubia department and the international experts some of the solutions were very original if not slightly pessimistic if the monuments can't be saved from the water why not visit them underwater a british architect proposed that future visitors travel by boat to a hollow concrete support similar to offshore platforms and then take an elevator 50 meters down to a watertight chamber the temples would be illuminated by floodlights [Music] the construction could also serve as a base for diving expeditions although other visitors could accompany the diving tourists in another proposal the temples were to be enclosed in a huge glass dome filled with water the idea of letting the nile flood the temple had the advantage that it didn't need to be moved but in the long run this would lead to the erosion of the sandstone temple sandstone is brittle with a composition of 50 sand a team of italian engineers proposed cutting the temples out of the rock and lifting them with a hydraulic system consisting of platforms an extremely slow and hazardous operation cutting out the temple and hydraulically raising it 60 meters seemed technically feasible in an engineering office in europe but we're in the desert here such a complex job would mean bringing a huge amount of equipment and also being perfectly coordinated so as not to another solution proposed using the rising water to lift the temple complex on a huge barge [Music] the most realistic solution to save the abu simbel complex from the dam waters was inspired by what was threatening them to build another dam to protect the temples a dam 300 meters long and over 60 metres high [Music] in 1963 more experts arrived in abu simbel a solution had not been agreed upon and time was pressing the valley would soon be underwater the reality on the ground was quite different to what the western engineers had imagined southern egypt was a remote region without an airport or proper roads [Music] the idea of a protective dam around the temple area was abandoned it didn't look good for the future of the temple complex but unesco refused to give up the monuments had to be removed from the ever-encroaching lake in any way possible [Music] the radical solution was to cut up the temples and reassemble them as close as possible to their original locations a consortium of german french italian swedish and egyptian companies was commissioned to do this the essen based company was to be responsible the conditions on site were a cause of concern for the engineers [Music] the problem was time because the decision had been made too late and we were faced with rising water once the aswan dam was finished and the flooding started so we had to protect our temples with so-called coffer dams and complete their dismantling before the water level flooded them not an easy task the living conditions for the workers rescuing the temple were not ideal the villages there were deserted which i benefited from because when it got too crowded to sleep on the boat i moved into a rickety old house in a neighboring village no one lived there anymore only large packs of dogs about 40 or 50 animals and scorpions we would crush them or throw stones at them once the scorpion stung me in the foot i howled in pain for 24 hours teams came and went in abu simbel conditions gradually improved housing was built for the workers and engineers the ultimate luxury in the desert was a swimming pool a small town grew with apartments warehouses a hospital even an airstrip it all became part of today's city of abu simbel some of the workers back then still live here after the rescue operation they worked as maintenance personnel in the 1960s many workers were nubians from the heights they observed the water rising gradually flooding the valley including the villages of their ancestors [Music] in 1964 preparations were made to cut into the temples while 300 kilometers further north the first section of the aswan high dam was inaugurated [Music] the russians built the dam without bothering about what was going on upstream they had a schedule and to save time they decided to fill the reservoir bit by bit in doing so they took advantage of the nile flood without really caring what that meant for the temple salvation [Music] the water encroached towards the temple area a cofferdam needed to be constructed quickly as a barrier the facade of the temple was covered with sand to protect it from the vibrations of the construction machinery an access tunnel was built within the monument we propped up the interior of the temple to prevent it from collapsing if boulders were moved above it walkways and scaffolding were constructed the workers were the last people to see the reliefs in their original location [Music] the dissection of the temple started in march 1964. three thousand engineers and workers took on the giant of stone starting at the top the cutting was done in stages on seeing the cutting saws arrive many of the egyptologists looked on anxiously the gaps shouldn't be wider than six millimeters specially developed hand saws had been created for the precision work which could not be left to the machines the most tedious work was cutting the ceilings inside it was a race against time floodlights were installed work continued around the clock [Music] after two years on march 31 1966 the temple was completely dismantled just in time as water was already pouring into the site [Music] the huge temple puzzle then had to be transported several hundred meters up the mountain on trucks a road was specifically built for this purpose the temples were reconstructed 65 meters above the original site extreme care was taken to catalogue and assemble the blocks nevertheless the egyptologists were concerned about the condition of the sculptures and the reliefs any cutting marks should be as invisible as possible the assembly of the heads was particularly tricky parts of the rock mass were also moved to the new location but would the temple complex bear the load [Music] the engineers erected a massive reinforced concrete shell around the temples building a 60 meter wide dome in the middle of the desert was an impressive technical achievement [Music] in september 1968 the temples of abu simbel were opened at their new location the international public was enthusiastic saved from the flooding the temples could now survive into the future the aswan high dam was completed in 1970 the huge water reservoir was given the name lake nasa in 1976 it reached its full capacity abu simbel may have been saved but other cultural treasures were still in danger there was not enough time or money to save them and many monuments fell victim to the dam construction such as the temple of gaif hussain 90 kilometers south of aswan which was dedicated to the god unfortunately some temples could not be saved because they were built of fragile or inferior stone the statue behind me is from and shows ramses ii he ordered the temple to be built is similar to the temple of abu simbel and was also carved into the rock but in contrast to abu simbel the clay sandstone here is very porous this statue of ramses ii was saved it stood with five other identical statues in today the rest of the monument lies 50 meters deep in lake nasa 200 kilometers up the nile is the temple of amadu one of the oldest monuments in nubia the origins of this temple date back to the 12th dynasty it was built in the 15th century bc by tutmosis iii and dedicated to amun ray [Music] due to its low location it was considered particularly vulnerable and would be one of the first cultural sites to sink into lake nasa an egyptian team of engineers dismantled the portico [Music] the magnificent and colorful reliefs inside were so delicate that it was fear they could break if cut [Music] a french team of experts wanted to move the temple as a whole on rails first they planned to dig underneath the temple to support the foundation with a concrete slab a corset was stretched around the structure and hydraulic jacks were used to move the 800 ton block centimeter by centimeter the workers had to relay the tracks every 150 meters the rescue operation dragged on for months and narrowly escaped disaster in 1964 when the nile level rose dangerously [Music] by 1965 the entire temple had moved almost three kilometers its location is now 60 meters higher than before the armada temple was saved and its unique coloured reliefs can still be admired today [Music] although only eight kilometers away from the aswan dam the temple complexes of fili had to wait to be rescued until the last moment they were located on an island in the middle of the nile the last pharaohs had a whole series of monuments erected here the best preserved are those from the end of the ptolemaic dynasty which queen cleopatra belonged to the largest temple is that of the goddess isis filey was built by the roman emperors as evidenced by the impressive trajan kiosk temple with the completion of the first aswan dam in 1902 the island was flooded 10 months of the year the construction of the new dam worsened the situation the nile water had washed out the foundations of the temples [Music] the site was enclosed with 17 000 sheets of metal then it was possible to start pumping out all the water the mammoth undertaking started in 1972. the thick layer of mud that had accumulated over the decades didn't make it any easier once the sheet piling of the cofferdam was in place workers began to remove the earth after the main temples had been cut down into 37 000 blocks weighing several tons each they were hauled away and the metal dam was removed filey disappeared into the floods of the nile the new site for the island's treasures was just a few hundred meters away the idea was to move all the monuments from filing to the neighboring island of agile which was higher and thus safe from flooding had the same topography as valley so all the monuments could be placed identically as they had been in fact the granite island in the middle of the lake was flattened by 30 meters [Music] in 1977 the landscape remodeling which started with the reconstruction of the temples was one of the largest projects of this kind on march the 10th 1980 many boats sailed towards a gilchia the treasures of philey were again open to the public due to the mostly cloudy waters of lake nasa it is impossible to see the ancient sites on its bottom one of the smallest monuments of nubia is the chapel carved into the rock at elizir [Music] its recovery was undertaken by an italian egyptian team and was one of the most dangerous operations undertaken as the nile floods of 1965 were unusually high the plan was to cut the chapel into blocks and transport them away by barge when the water level suddenly rose everything had to be done quickly the barge was used like a water elevator and the blocks were successfully loaded just in time in recognition of this achievement and the work done in abu simbel italy received the remains of the chapel as a gift [Music] today the small rock temple of elizia is in the egyptian museum of turin and is one of the world's oldest collections of egyptian antiquities [Music] was built in the middle of the 15th century bc by order of pharaoh tutmosis iii due to his many conquests in nubia and the levant he's also known as the napoleon of ancient egypt an egyptian chapel on nubian territory was not only a tribute to the gods it also served to control caravans bringing luxury goods from africa to egypt the nations involved in the rescue operation of nubia's cultural treasures all hope to obtain a peace or two for their own collections of antiques spain secured a particularly impressive monument de bod was one of the largest temples to leave egypt it had already been taken apart in 1961 and stored temporarily on the so-called elephant island near the dam in 1970 the stones were taken to madrid [Music] he began the construction of the chapel other rooms were added in the ptolemaic era and then by the roman emperor augustus and his successor tiberius [Music] the metropolitan museum of art in new york benefited from the u.s involvement in the bailout [Music] it is home to one of the best egyptian exhibitions in the world [Music] dendure one of the nile temples has been on display here since 1978. the stones used to build the temple have come a long way [Music] egypt thanked other countries with various pharonic gifts the netherlands received the temple of tafar germany was given a gate to the mandulas temple of kalab shah which can be seen today in berlin the nubian rescue campaign lasted a total of 30 years the largest monument rescue project of all time was largely successful thanks to international support innovative technical solutions and the work of thousands on site [Music] however quite a few cultural sites were not saved with the complete flooding of lake nasa they have been lost forever and one hundred thousand nubians lost their homes nevertheless the archaeological rescue operation made it possible to document the history of nubia and sheds new light on the history of southern egypt in 1979 the rescued temples on lake nasa were declared a unesco world heritage site they are not only fascinating testimonies to the pharonic era but also belong to one of the most spectacular rescues of cultural treasures ever [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 351,098

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2021, Documentation, Egypt, Nile, Aswan Dam, Abu Simbel, Cleopatra, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Id: hTbuPEfasqw

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021