With the construction of the great dam – approved by the Egyptian government in 1958 to allow the country’s economy to be modernized, and built between 1960 and 1964 – 360 kilometres of territory in Egypt and 140 in Sudan were to be irretrievably transformed into a great inland sea. Which is why the Cairo and Khartoum governments resolved to sign an official request for an appeal to UNESCO. So it was that in 1960 the organization turned to its member states and what was later to be called the greatest archaeological salvage operation of all time got underway.

Over 70 separate archaeological missions from 25 countries explored each of the Nubian regions that were due to be flooded, both in Egypt and in Sudan. A good 14 temples and monuments scattered along this stretch of the Nile valley were dismantled stone by stone and completely reconstructed beyond the reach of the waters. Without doubt, the most famous of these operations were those leading to the salvaging of the two temples of Abu Simbel and those of Philae. Five temples – including that of Ellesya, which is today reconstructed in Turin’s Museum of Egypt – were donated to the countries that collaborated in the rescue work.

During the conference at Aswan, which has been organized by Egypt’s and Sudan’s ministries of culture, scholars who took part in the salvage campaign will be presented with an award by UNESCO. Some hitherto unpublished documents relating to the period of salvage work will go on display, and a new campaign for the preservation of the Nubian heritage will be launched.

ANSA

In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settles into a Nile River houseboat moored below the towering figures of Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of the temple as it’s rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam. He is a “machine-worshipper,” yet exquisitely sensitive to the dichotomy of creation and destruction of which machines are capable. Jean is a botanist by avocation and passion, interested in everything that grows. They had met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and watched together as the construction of the seaway changed the course of the river and swallowed towns, homes, lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be lost forever, Avery and Jean create their own world, exchanging the “moments that are the mortar of our days, innocent memories we don’t know we hold until given the gift of the eagerness of another.”

But that gift will not be enough to bind them when tragedy strikes, and they will go back to separate lives in Toronto. Avery returns to school to study architecture, and Jean enters the life of Lucjan, a Polish émigré artist. Lucjan’s haunting stories of occupied Warsaw draw Jean further and further away from Avery. But, in time, he will also offer her the chance for forgiveness, consolation, and, finally, her own, most essential life.

Stunning in its explorations of both the physical and emotional worlds of its characters, intensely moving and lyrical, The Winter Vault is a radiant work of fiction.

Set in 1964, The Winter Vault chronicles two great mid-century displacements caused by massive engineering projects – the building of the Aswan dam in Egypt and the St Lawrence seaway in Canada – likening these, in emotional and political terms, to upheavals caused by war.

Michaels is at her didactic best drawing parallels between the thousands of displaced Canadians and the Nubian population permanently uprooted by the building of the Aswan dam. She compresses a good deal of historical research into these passages, so that at times it is hard to separate one’s wonder at the author’s descriptive powers from basic wonder at the feats she describes. That houses, and peoples, and an entire 1,000-year-old (sic) temple could all be moved (the latter in “sandstone blocks, the smallest weighing 20 tonnes”) is both astonishing and, as Michaels shows us, heartbreaking – and wrong.

In a lovely touch, Michaels conveys the emotional freight of place names by placing a list of soon-to-be-lost Nubian villages (Abri, Kosh Dakki, Semna) next to those lost to the St Lawrence Seaway (Farran’s Point, Aultsville, Maple Grove). Another powerful point is the heartbreak of a community being separated from the graves of its cherished dead. The “winter vault” of the novel’s title refers to places in cold climates built to house corpses when the ground is too hard for digging graves.

From a review by Sylvia Brownrigg for The Guardian

Up to 2,000 tourists saw in the morning of Feb 22 the unique event of the Sun’s rays penetrating the Great Temple all the way to the inner  sanctum to illuminate the face of Ramses II. The rare astronomical and engineering phenomenon happens on February 22 and October 22 each year.

The director of Abu Simble antiquities said that “The perpendicular fall of the sun started at 6:25 am this morning and lasted for 24 minutes. During this time the sun reached 60 meters inside the temple to announce the beginning of “Shamo ” month, which is the beginning of the harvest season at the ancient Egyptians.

A large number of representatives of the world media and television stations were present to cover the event which was broadcast live by 22 television channels.

Celebrations had begun on Saturday evening with folklore presentations.

The axis of the temple was positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice a year, on october 21 and February 21 the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the underworld, who always remained in the dark. After the transfer of the Temple of Abu Simbel from its original location to its current one within the project to save the Nubian monuments, it changed to be on October 22 and February 22 each year, for the change of latitude and length of the temple after the transfer of 120 meters towards the west and at altitudes of 60 meters.

Egypt State Information Service

The sun began to enter the temple at 0555 local time (02.55 GMT) for 24 minutes to illuminate the figure of the king of the XIX dynasty of the New Empire (1539-1075 BC). During that brief time, the solar rays traveled along a distance of 60 meters until reaching the sanctum of the temple to announce the start of the month of ‘Bert’, which marked the beginning of the agricultural season for the ancient Egyptians.

The sanctum contains four statues depicting Ramses II as equal to the gods seated in the middle of Re-Herakhty and Amen, with the god Ptah to the right of Amen. The rising sun illuminates all the figures except that of Ptah.

According to the official MENA agency, five thousand tourists were able to observe the spectacle, which will be repeated next February 22.

The event was preceded by several folk performances by various Egyptian groups the night before.

The Great Temple at Abu Simbel is constructed so that the sun’s rays illuminate the statue of Ramses II only twice a year: on October 22, to commemorate his access to throne, and again on Feb. 22, on the occasion of his birthday.

UNESCO’s engineers took into account this phenomenon when the temple complex was relocated 210 (688 feet) meters back and 65 meters (213 feet) up above its original site. However, this miracle of nature and engineering was delayed by two days with the move, as it is believed that the solar phenomenon took place on October 20 and February 20 when the great temple was built.

Translated from terra.es