When the Aswan dam was built across the Nile and completed in the 1960s, the waters of the river began to rise and threatened to drown some of the marvels of Ancient Egypt. Chief among these was the rock temple of the pharaoh. It was built on the solid rock 3200 years ago, and was guarded by statues of the pharaoh, 21 metres high, also cut out of the solid rock. The only way to save the temple was to saw it into great blocks, some of them weighing up to 30 tons, and to raise it piece by piece several hundred metres up the cliff face. There it was reassembled out of reach of the water. This extraordinary engineering feat took four whole years to complete, and even then only just in time. Now the statues sit as serene as ever, with a lake at their feet.

The dam was constructed to regulate the flow of the river, which serves the whole of Egypt. Flooding of the Nile occurs annually, with almost half of the water being drained into the sea wastefully. The dam controls floods by regulating the flow of the river and supplies water for irrigation throughout the year, which almost doubles the agricultural yield.

The dam also improved navigation across the Nile, benefiting the tourism and fishing industries. Water from the dam is used to feed 12 power turbines, which provides half of Egypt’s power demands. The reservoir also helps supply water during droughts.