‘The Battle for Abu Simbel’: Archaeology and Postcolonial Diplomacy in the UNESCO Campaign for Nubia

Abstract

This essay examines the role and agency of British archaeologists in the discussions surrounding Egypt’s construction of the Aswan High Dam beginning in the late 1950s. The dam was conceived as a grand engineering project that would create new farmland and make Egypt self-sufficient in terms of its energy needs, but flooding caused by the dam threatened to destroy numerous archaeological sites along the Nile River on the border of Egypt and Sudan. With the blessing of the Egyptian and Sudanese governments, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a complex rescue operation in 1960 with the goal of surveying the affected sites, in some cases removing entire structures to safe locations. Despite Britain’s initial reluctance—four years after the Suez crisis—to participate in a program that would benefit an avowedly hostile regime, British scientific expertise and private fundraising soon came to play an important role in UNESCO’s ‘Campaign for Nubia’. Using diplomatic papers and the records of various scientific bodies, I will argue that British participation in the UNESCO archaeological program was a crucial avenue for Anglo-Egyptian rapprochement during the 1960s and 1970s.