BY HANNAH ALLAM
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
ABU SIMBEL, Egypt -- The lush farmland where Bakri Gaffar played as a boy, scaling palm trees and fishing the Nile, now lies deep underwater.
Gaffar, 75, still remembers every contour of his village, which the Egyptian government submerged in the 1960s along with dozens of others to make way for the landmark Aswan High Dam.
At the time, international outrage over the project focused on the threat to the treasured Abu Simbel temple, built in the 13th century B.C. by the Pharaoh Ramses II and considered one of Egypt's great archaeological sites. A U.N. salvage operation that relocated the temple block by block above the new water line made headlines across the globe. A smaller temple nearby also was saved, and now stands at a public park in Spain.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/2...#storylink=cpy
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
ABU SIMBEL, Egypt -- The lush farmland where Bakri Gaffar played as a boy, scaling palm trees and fishing the Nile, now lies deep underwater.
Gaffar, 75, still remembers every contour of his village, which the Egyptian government submerged in the 1960s along with dozens of others to make way for the landmark Aswan High Dam.
At the time, international outrage over the project focused on the threat to the treasured Abu Simbel temple, built in the 13th century B.C. by the Pharaoh Ramses II and considered one of Egypt's great archaeological sites. A U.N. salvage operation that relocated the temple block by block above the new water line made headlines across the globe. A smaller temple nearby also was saved, and now stands at a public park in Spain.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/2...#storylink=cpy