To Raise a Pharaoh

Of all the worthy projects it has aided around the world, UNESCO has had few to 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.

When Ramses built his temple, he probably expected it to impress the world until the end of time. He certainly did not dream that 3,185 years after his death a gigantic dam would block the Nile, and a long winding lake would creep gradually upstream to cover the temple's site with 190 ft. of water. But that is what is happening. Unless the ancient temple can be protected, the water backed up by the Aswan High Dam will submerge and probably crumble it.

Tricky Business. Archaeologists raised the alarm when they realized the temple's peril, and several schemes were suggested to keep the water away from Ramses' memorial. One faction wanted to cover the temple with a watertight dome, another to protect it with a curving cofferdam. Both dome and cofferdam could be built, but they would be difficult to maintain and would dwarf the temple. The most attractive scheme, conceived by Italian Archaeologist Piero Gazzola, was to cut the whole temple free of the surrounding rock and lift it with 308 hydraulic jacks to a new place above the water. This daring proposal was accepted by the Egyptian government, which will contribute $10 million.

Raising the temple will be difficult and painstaking. Because the rock out of which it was carved is full of cracks and weak places, the Italian engineers plan to remove all the rock over the temple, then drive shafts and tunnels around and under it. In this way, they will construct bit by bit an enormously strong, roughly cubical caisson of reinforced concrete to enclose the temple. The great box with its contents will weigh something like 300,000 tons, will probably be the heaviest weight ever lifted by man.

Always on Keel. The lifting will be slow and cautious. The 308 massive jacks will move less than one-tenth of an inch at a time. Each time the jacks have raised the mass about one foot, precast concrete pillars will be placed to take the weight. In 29 months, if all goes well, the temple with its giant figures and the rock enclosing its inner rooms will rise 203 ft., safely above the water. It will then be set into a rounded, natural-looking cap of artificial rock. The last step will be to construct in front of the temple a shelving piece of ground resembling the shore of the Nile, now left far below. When all is done, the great figures of Ramses II will stare out over the Aswan lake, as they stared out over the Nile before its waters rose.

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