In October 2018, I made a day trip from Aswan to visit Abu Simbel, two massive rock temples in Nubia, near Egypt’s southern border with Sudan. The twin temples were carved out of the mountainside more than 3,000 years ago, but eventually became buried by Sahara desert sand and forgotten until 1813, when found by the same Swiss orientalist who discovered Petra just a year before. But it’s Abu Simbel’s recent history that’s mind boggling. In the 1960s, Egypt began constructing the Aswan High Dam to control Nile flooding, provide water for irrigation and generate hydroelectricity, but whose rising waters would submerge the temples. It was decided to relocate the temples to higher ground. So, between 1964 and 1968, the temples were cut into massive blocks, dismantled, lifted and reassembled in a new location 65 meters higher and 200 meters farther from the Nile onto a purpose-built hill.  In gratitude, the Egyptian government gifted temples to the main countries that took part in the relocation, which is how the Temple of Dendur came to be on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.