User:Lindsing17/International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia

The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia was the relocation of 22 monuments in Lower Nubia, in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan, between 1960 and 1980. This was done in order to make way for the building of the Aswan Dam, at the Nile's first cataract (shallow rapids) which was a necessary infrastructure project following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution. This project was undertaken under UNESCO leadership and a coalition of 50 countries. This process infamously led to the creation of the World Heritage Convention in 1972, and thus the system of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The construction of the Aswan Dam was a key objective of the new regime the Free Officers movement of 1952 in order to better control flooding, provide increased water storage for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity, all of which were seen as pivotal for the industrialization of Egypt.

The building of the dam was to result in the creation of Lake Nasser, which would submerge the banks of the Nile along its entire 479 km (298 mi) length south of the dam – flooding the entire historical region between Upper Egypt and Nubia. This region was home to 22 critical historical sites, including but not limited to the Abu Simbel temples; as well as the temples atPhilae, Kalabsha and Amada.

It was described in the UNESCO Courier as "the greatest archaeological rescue operation of all time".

In April 1979, the monuments were inscribed on the World Heritage List as the Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae, as one of the second group of properties added to the list (the first 12 had been added in 1978).

History
In 1954, UNESCO founded the Documentation and Study Centre for the History of Art and Civilization of Ancient Egypt (Centre de Documentation sur l’Égypte Ancienne) in Cairo under the direction of Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, who was a French Egyptologist at the Louvre. This prompted a shift in attention far more so to Egyptian concerns over Sudanese concerns with the project, due to how much of the UNESCO's hired leadership came from Cairo, Egypt. The Study Centre worked on documenting over 400 private tombs, primarily through photography and photogrammetry. By September of 1955, field expeditions under Dr. Ahmed Badawi were undertaken in Nubia with UNESCO permission.

By 1959, Tharwat Okasha, the Egyptian Minister of Culture sought to work alongside UNESCO to safeguard and preserve Nubian monuments. He met with the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, René Maheu to submit his appeal, which was quickly reassured to be responded to by Director-General Vittorino Veronese. A proposal was submitted to the Executive Board of UNESCO, which would later mount the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia.

This was officially began after Vittorino Veronese's appeal to the Executive Board of UNESCO on March 8, 1960. During the proposal, he described it: "It is not easy to choose between a heritage of the past and the present well-being of a people, living in need in the shadow of one of history's most splendid legacies, it is not easy to choose between temples and crops." Doing so, he pointed out various concerns regarding the need to preserve Nubian cultural heritage sites in Egypt and Sudan while promoting the welfare of Egypt in relation to the proposed Aswan Dam.

The proposal was accepted, by the participation of many member states of UNESCO, though with the rule that 50% of finds would be relocated to museums in participating countries. The intention of the campaign became to perform a massive archeological survey of the region, and the second was to rescue temples and sites through feats of engineering. The level of fieldwork for the project had not been previous undertaken on equivalent scale or length of time, leaving many to praise the campaign as a feat of the field of archeology.

Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, who remained in charge of the Documentation and Study Centre for the History of Art and Civilization of Ancient Egypt (Centre de Documentation sur l’Égypte Ancienne) in Cairo, held a leading role within the archeological survey aspect of the campaign. She was tasked with the manner in which notes would be circulated during the project, suggesting that archaeological missions working in Nubia would be required to hand over copies publications and notes produced during the project to the Centre, and abiding by the Centre's publication techniques. Excavations from Egypt would be only required to send over copies of notes, without requiring copies of publications or oversight into said publications. This is theorized to be related to the post-colonial desire to fortify Egyptian identity in a cultural history following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.

The removal of temples was a project of greater difficulty. 18 of the 25 temples in the area affected by the Aswan Dam were rescued in whole or in part during the project. Sites were prioritized by importance, including the most expensive site excavated being Abu Simbel.

A honorary committee was first founded by King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden to create international support for the campaign, with various world political leaders and UNESCO members as participants. An official International Action Committee was established after under the UNESCO Director General in order to secure funding, service, and equipment from participating member states. They decided that UNESCO would be in charge of planning the program of operations, coordination of labor, and the collection of funding. The intention was for them to serve as an intermediaries between donors and the nations of Egypt and Sudan.

Egyptians contested the oversight of UNESCO, who insisted they could meet demands of donors without UNESCO involvement. Despite this, UNESCO continued a significant amount of oversight throughout the duration of the campaign.

The construction of Lake Nasser, as well as the excavations required in the Nubia campaign, involved the relocation of many Nubians native to the region. First in 1902 due to the construction of the Aswan Lower Dam, then in both 1912 and 1933 due to the rising water levels, and a fourth time after the creation of the Aswan High Dam. The forced relocation stripped many native Nubians of their ancestral homelands, with the compensation of unsuitable homes for living and agriculture. This forced many Nubians to immigrate to cities in Egypt and later Sudan.

(IN CASE YOU CHECK HERE INSTEAD OF THE ARTICLE I GAVE THIS SECTION 3 IMAGES) I also moved the timeline section to be under the history section.

Overview
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Abu Simbel
keep first paragraph the same. Only change the bolded part in paragraph 2

The salvage of the Abu Simbel temples began in 1964 by a multinational team of archeologists, engineers and skilled heavy equipment operators working together under the UNESCO banner; it cost some US$40 million (equivalent to $632 million in 2024). Between 1964 and 1968, the entire site was carefully cut into large blocks (up to 30 tons, averaging 20 tons), dismantled, lifted and reassembled in a new location 65 metres higher and 200 metres back from the river, in one of the greatest challenges of archaeological engineering in history. Some structures were even saved from under the waters of Lake Nasser.

[In general, I added a lot of wikilinks where they were lacking, but I did not include that in the sandbox. I added a total of 3 images] {I added references backing up prior information in the Philae and Amada sections, and added a paragraph to Amada. Please check the edit history over this document for grading