On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy called on Congress to endorse an international effort to preserve ancient temples in Egypt’s historic Valley of the Kings. The monuments were threatened by the impending construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River, a venture funded in 1958 by the Soviet Union.
As the reservoir began to fill, some 24 major monuments were either moved to safer locations or relocated to museums in Western countries that had helped underwrite the $100 million UNESCO-sponsored effort.
In his letter to lawmakers, Kennedy asserted that participation in the rescue project would reflect “the interests of the United States” as well as the nation’s interest in ancient Egyptian culture, “from which many of our own cultural traditions have sprung.” He also cited the United States’ “deep friendship for the people who live in the valley of the Nile.”
Congress subsequently agreed to contribute $16 million toward the cost of relocating the antiquities. Endangered sites rescued with American funds included the twin temples at Abu Simbel, originally carved out of the mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II in the 13th century B.C., as a monument to him and his queen, Nefertari.
In exchange for the preservation aid, the United Arab Republic — which had been formed by Egypt and Syria in 1958 — and Sudan agreed to let American archaeologists excavate areas outside the Nile Valley and take some Nile Valley treasures back to U.S. museums.
Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, did not live to see any of the antiquities arrive in the United States. However, his widow, Jackie, helped arrange to have Egypt’s Temple of Dendur brought to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1965. Today, the temple remains a centerpiece of the museum’s collections.
Source: “Chronology of the Pharaohs,” by Peter Clayton (1994)
