Word: simbel
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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More than 3.000 years ago, Ramses II. Pharaoh of Egypt, had his slaves cut a magnificent temple out of a sandstone cliff beside the Nile. Four colossal figures, designed as monuments to the Pharaoh, sit impassively beside the temple entrance. But for all its magnificence, the Temple of Abu Simbel is apparently doomed. For lack of $22 million, the cost of a few bombers or missiles, it will soon be submerged under 200 ft. of muddy water backed up by the High Dam being built at Aswan 180 miles downstream...
...Cliff. Many schemes have been proposed to save Abu Simbel. The simplest one, advanced by French engineers, involves the construction of a semicircular concrete dam 250 ft. high, to wall off the Nile water. The dam would probably cost $80 million, and constant pumping would still be needed to handle seepage. If the pumps were ever stopped, water would soon cover the temple, wrecking its ancient stonework...
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the U.N. agency in charge of saving Abu Simbel, rejected the French dam in favor of a more imaginative Italian proposal to cut the whole temple free of the rock and lift it to the top of the cliff by hydraulic jacks. Once raised above the rising water, the temple would be safe indefinitely, and it would have an attractive site on the rim of the great new artificial lake. The lifting would cost $42 million plus $24 million for finishing...
Three of the world's richest nations, the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and Britain, have thus far given nothing. The Russians claim that their money is already helping Egypt to build the High Dam; someone else, they say, should take care of Abu Simbel. The U.S. apparently believes that attempts to raise the temple would destroy it. and anyway. $42 million would only begin to cover the cost of jacking...
Membrane Dam. While the fate of Abu Simbel hung in the balance, two cut-rate schemes were proposed to save it. British Movie Producer William MacQuitty. backed by a group of London engineers and architects, proposed building a thin ''membrane" dam around the temple. When muddy Nile water rises outside, pressure will be balanced as the space that the dam encloses will be filled to the same height with clear, filtered water treated so that it will not damage the temple's stonework. Visitors would be able to admire the temple from submerged portholes reached by elevators...