Rear view of the monuments of Abu Simbel. In the 1960s a new High Dam was built at Aswan, which resulted in a build-up of water that threatened to engulf the monuments along its Nubian shores. UNESCO began a rescue operation in 1964, the like of which had never been seen before. In the incredible salvage operation the temples were dismantled and cut up into manageable-sized blocks, then painstakingly reconstructed 65m higher than the original site. Inside a specially constructed mountain, two gigantic reinforced concrete domes protect the rebuilt temples.