The dams and the displacement
The 1902 Aswan dam and its two heightenings flooded Nubian land repeatedly over three decades; people rebuilt further up the slope each time. The High Dam ended that — the valley went under permanently in the 1960s and the communities were resettled wholesale, in Egypt mainly near Kom Ombo and in Sudan at Khashm el-Girba. Published totals differ; the order commonly given is around fifty thousand in each country.
This happened within living memory. There are people in Aswan today who were born in villages that are now under two hundred kilometres of water, and families for whom "where are you from?" is answered with the name of a place that no longer exists.
Published figures for how many people were displaced differ by tens of thousands depending on what is being counted and when. We give the order of magnitude and say that it is contested, rather than picking the tidiest number.
Whether the compensation and the resettlement were adequate is still argued about, publicly and in Egyptian politics. We report that it is argued about; we do not settle it.
The valley floor, the villages, the palm groves and the cemeteries were not moved. The monuments were, and the people were. That distinction is the whole reason this page exists alongside the salvage-campaign page.
Flood control, year-round irrigation and a large share of the country’s electricity are real achievements, and this site does not argue against them. It also drowned an inhabited valley. Both are true, and a page that gives you only one of them is selling you something.
Campaign dates, the number of monuments moved, and the four temples transferred to Spain, the United States, the Netherlands and Italy.
The inscription, the scope of the salvage campaign, and the relocation of Philae, Abu Simbel and the Lake Nasser temples.
Reviewed by no Nubian editor appointed yet · We will not mark this section reviewed until a real, named person has read it.