Documentary 90 mn / 52 mn

A film by Olivier Lemaitre

Production Sequana Media for Histoire

Music by Pierre Estève

Returning from southern Egypt, travelers reported the existence of temples between the Nubian desert and the Nile. Majestic colossi of stones emerging from the sands guarded its door and its secrets.

For centuries Abu Simbel will be the victim of looters, earthquakes, desert encroachment and flooding. In the 20th century, its destiny is to end up swallowed up by a dam threatening more than 20 ancient sanctuaries.

But an unprecedented international mobilization will succeed in saving it at the cost of a “pharaonic” displacement. Across Upper Egypt, other temples like those of Philae will be dismantled as a matter of urgency and reinstalled on artificial islands or shipped abroad (Germany, Italy, US.A, Netherlands, Spain,…).

Along the Nile, this trip crosses that of the Pharaohs of Ramses II in the last dynasties and

the turbulent history of the temples until their rescues.

We try to understand the gestures of the ancient builders. Archeology presents us with the materials and traces of construction that reveal the secrets of how monuments were made. Experts are confronted with 3D animations allowing to understand the machines and techniques of the ancient period.