One of the world’s biggest archaeological rescue operations was successfully concluded 50 years ago after a massive ancient Egyptian temple complex was dismantled and hoisted to higher ground to prevent its flooding by the damming of the Nile River.

The groundbreaking UNESCO-led project to relocate around 20 gigantic monuments in Abu Simbel complex was officially concluded on September 22, 1968, after an eight-year international effort involving hundreds of workers.

Here is a look back at the remarkable feat.

More than 2,500 years old

The two Abu Simbel temples — named after their village location — were carved out of cliffs overlooking the Nile in the time of Ramses II, the ruler of Egypt from 1298 to 1235 BC.

The larger has four colossal statues of a seated Ramses II at the entrance, through which there are succession of rooms and galleries stretching back 63 metres (207 feet).

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 construction would create a huge artificial lake behind the dam wall, requiring the resettlement of tens of thousands of indigenous Nubians from villages in the area and also threatening monuments.

Pharaonic and Greco-Roman temples including those of Abu Simbel risked being submerged.

Technical feat

In 1960, UNESCO, the UN organisation dedicated to preservation of culture, launched an appeal to save the temples. Several projects were put on the table but, too costly, they were quickly put aside.

Eventually a Swedish-Egyptian proposal was selected.

Work was launched on April 1, 1964 with the construction of a temporary dam to protect the site and the excavation of the cliff around the two temples.

The Abu Simbel temples were cut into 1,035 blocks each weighing between 20 and 30 tonnes. The four seated statues of Ramses II and six others of the king standing up were sawn into pieces.

Jacks, cranes and powerful winches hoisted the enormous stone weights to the top of the cliff, 64 metres (210 feet) from their original location.

There the blocks were reassembled to reconstitute the two temples exactly as they were.

Artificial hills were then created around the site as a protective barrier against the river.

For four years about 800 labourers and 100 technicians worked in the desert under a red-hot sun to complete the project, which cost 36 millions dollars.

An international effort

At a ceremony on September 22, 1968 to mark the completion, UNESCO director general Rene Maheu said it was “the first time that we have seen international cooperation in action on such a scale in the sphere of culture.”

It was an “unparallelled undertaking, in which over fifty countries… have combined their efforts to save the artistic and historical treasures of the temples of Abu Simbel.”

The original site is today completely submerged by Lake Nasser.

Follow-up rescue

An operation – also part of UNESCO’s Nubia Campaign – to save the temple complex on Philae island, around dozen kilometres upstream from Aswan, started in 1972.

Involving 40 archaeological missions from around the world, it ran for eight years and cost more than 30 million dollars.

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.

UNESCO director general Amadou Mahtar M’Bow praised the “wealth of talent, energy, experience and capital” mobilised to save the Nubia monuments.

“Nowhere, perhaps, has the sacred art of Egypt defied time so majestically as in Nubia, part of which is vanishing before our eyes today,” he said.

 
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Shiites across the Middle East on Thursday marked Ashoura, an annual commemoration mourning the 7th century death of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints.

For Shiites, who represent more than 10 percent of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims, the remembrance of Hussein is an emotional event that sees many believers weep over his death at the Battle of Karbala in present-day Iraq. Some beat their backs with chains, flagellating themselves in a symbolic expression of regret for not being able to help Hussein before his martyrdom.

But the commemorations can prove tempting targets for Sunni extremist groups, who view Shiites as heretics.

Moment to fuel defiance

In Iran, the Mideast’s Shiite power, groups of men beat their backs with chains in Tehran. Other mourners beat their chests while carrying black, green and red flags. State television showed similar mourning ceremonies across the country.

For Iranians, this Ashoura comes as the United States is re-imposing sanctions on Iran previously lifted by its nuclear deal with world powers, despite Tehran’s compliance with the accord. While Iran’s national currency, the rial, plummets, Ashoura provides a moment to fuel mourners’ defiance with its message of sacrifice and dignity in the face of coercion.

​Heavy security

In neighboring Pakistan, paramilitary troops, police and intelligence agents fanned out to protect mourners’ processions. Authorities cut mobile phone services in major cities holding commemorations for fear of militant bombings. Motorbikes were stopped from carrying multiple passengers to prevent drive-by shootings. Some mourners there sliced their backs with knives to express their grief.

Battered by brazen and deadly attacks by an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, minority Shiites stationed heavily armed guards at their mosques Thursday. Police also were on hand.

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for Kabul’s police chief, said large vehicles, including trucks and SUVs, were banned from streets where mosques are located to prevent car bombs.

Shiites in Iraq, Lebanon and other nations marked the day as well.
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The United States is seeking to negotiate a treaty with Iran that will cover both its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, the U.S. special envoy for Iran said on Wednesday ahead of U.N. meetings in New York next week.

“The new deal that we hope to be able to sign with Iran, and it will not be a personal agreement between two governments like the last one, we seek a treaty,” envoy Brian Hook told an audience at the Hudson Institute think tank.

But Hook said Iranian leaders have not been interested in talking despite statements by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this year that the administration was willing to meet.

Trump announced in May that he was pulling the United States out of an Obama-era nuclear deal signed between Iran and six world powers.

The 2015 deal was an executive agreement that was not ratified by the U.S. Senate. A treaty would require approval by the Senate.

Opponents of the nuclear agreement have argued that Obama’s failure to seek ratification of the deal allowed Trump to unilaterally scrap the deal in May.

“They did not have the votes in the U.S. Senate so they found the votes in the U.N. Security Council. That is insufficient in our system of government if you want to have something enduring and sustainable,” Hook said, without elaborating on how the administration would negotiate.

Trump will chair a session on Iran during the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York next week. In July, Trump said he was willing to meet Iran’s leaders “anytime they want” prompting speculation that a meeting could occur at the U.N. meetings next week.

“The ayatollah, the president and foreign minister have all indicated they are not interested in talking,” Hook said, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“We respect that though that does not change our plans. We have a sanctions regime that is underway, stronger measures are yet to come,” he added.

Hook said the administration was expanding its diplomatic efforts to ensure that purchases of Iranian oil were “close to zero” by Nov. 4 when Washington reimposed oil sanctions against Tehran.
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An Iraqi court on Wednesday sentenced to death on terror charges a prominent jihadist described as a deputy of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after he was captured in Turkey.

“The Karkh criminal court in Baghdad sentenced to death by hanging one of the most prominent leaders of IS, who served as a deputy of Baghdadi,” judicial spokesman Abdel Sattar Bayraqdar said.

The Iraqi authorities announced in February that Ismail Alwan Salman al-Ithawi had been extradited from Turkey after fleeing first Iraq and then Syria as the group’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” crumbled.

The jihadist was tracked and detained through cooperation between Turkish, Iraqi and US intelligence agencies, a senior Iraqi official told AFP at the time.

He said the arrest came after an elite Iraqi unit hunting IS members “infiltrated the highest levels” of the jihadist group, which has claimed a string of deadly attacks in the West in recent years.

A native of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, Ithawi was accused of holding several positions including IS “minister” in charge of religious edicts.

Originally from Iraq, Baghdadi has been dubbed the “most wanted man on the planet” and the United States is offering a $25 million reward for his capture.

He has been pronounced dead on several occasions, but an Iraqi intelligence official said in May that he remained alive in Syrian territory by the Iraqi border.

In a purported new audio recording released last month, the IS chief called on Muslims to wage “jihad.”

He made his only known public appearance in Iraq’s second city of Mosul in July 2014.

Iraq has condemned several hundred people, including around 100 foreign women, to death for IS links, and dozens of convicted jihadists have already been executed.

Many more have been handed life terms, including nine Tajik women who were sentenced by an Iraqi criminal court on Wednesday for belonging to IS, a judicial official said.

The country has repeatedly faced criticism from international human rights groups over the high number of death sentences handed down by its anti-terrorist courts.

Iraq declared “victory” over IS in December after a three-year war against the jihadists who once controlled nearly one third of the country as well as swathes of neighboring Syria.

The Iraqi military has kept up operations targeting mostly remote desert areas where jihadists have continued to carry out attacks.

Over the border in Syria, U.S.-backed fighters last week launched a fierce assault against a dwindling pocket of territory held by IS in eastern Deir Ezzor province.

 

 

 
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