Word: simbel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
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...
...sake of accuracy, I would like to point out that President Kennedy's request for $4,000,000. which the House Appropriations Committee turned down [TIME, Sept. 22], was not to be used to jack up the Temple of Abu Simbel above the rising waters of the Nile's Aswan High Uam in Egypt. The President felt that the American contribution in the form of funds accumulated in Egypt could best be used to preserve the lesser temples in the U.A.R. and Sudan and help finance archaeological exploration in the Nubian area of Egypt, also threatened once...
...Turned down, in the House Appropriations Committee, a $4,000,000 request by President Kennedy to help jack up the entire Temple of Abu Simbel 203 feet above the rising waters of the Nile's Aswan High Dam in Egypt...
...compare with the one it was busy on last week: the raising of a Pharaoh. It started passing the hat among members of the United Nations to collect $75 million for a daring and imaginative attempt to save the impressive, rock-cut Temple of Abu Simbel near the southern border of Egypt, where for 3,000 years four colossal figures of Pharaoh Ramses II have looked out imperturbably over the Nile. Cut into the living rock are great chambers and corridors decorated with spirited bas-reliefs of Ramses' victories...