6 Best Sights in Lake Nasser, Aswan and Lake Nasser

One of the world's largest embankment dams, the Aswan High Dam gave the Egyptians control over the annual Nile floods for the first time in history. With financing from the Soviet Union, construction of the dam, a keystone project of then-president Gamal Abdel Nasser, started in 1960 and was completed in 10 years, thanks to the sweat of 30,000 Egyptians working around the clock.

The Aswan High Dam created Lake Nasser, one of the world's largest artificial lakes, which has a storage capacity of 5.97 trillion cubic feet. The dam's 12 turbines generate 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity yearly.

Ironically, damming the Nile has actually made Egypt's land less fertile because the silt gets caught in the lake, and farmers must now apply chemical fertilizers. An incalculable loss is the homeland of the Lower Nubians, one of Africa's oldest civilizations. The dam displaced 100,000 Nubians, who were forced to relocate and only started to receive government compensation for their lost homes and villages in 2019.

Display panels at the dam tell the story of its construction, and a stylized lotus monument commemorates the Soviet–Egyptian partnership.  If you're short on time, this sight is one to skip. Most visitors spend only 15 minutes here en route to elsewhere.

The largest freestanding temple in Nubia, the little-visited Temple of Kalabsha was built by Roman emperor Augustus, who reigned from 27 BC to AD 14. It's dedicated to Osiris, Isis, and Mandulis, an ancient Nubian sun god adopted by Ptolemies and Romans. He's often shown with an elaborate headdress of ram's horns topped with sun discs, cobras, and plumed feathers. The building was never finished, and only three inner rooms, as well as portions of the exterior, are completely decorated with reliefs.

Kalabsha's temple complex includes a mammisi (chapel depicting divine birth), a column-surrounded court and a hypostyle hall. Stairs from one of the sanctuaries go up to the roof, where you can soak up spectacular views of the temple, Lake Nasser, and the Aswan High Dam. In the 1960s, a German team moved the temple, saving it from the lake waters, and the Egyptian government thanked Germany with one of the original gates, now in Berlin.

Northwest of the Temple of Kalabsha, a walkway leads to the small rock-cut temple of Beit al-Wali. Ramses II commissioned this diminutive but colorful monument, probably for show instead of worship, and the walls depict scenes of the pharaoh clutching his enemies by the hair. Other reliefs demonstrate the riches of Nubia—including gold, ebony, ivory, leopard skins, monkeys, giraffes, lions, and gazelles—being awarded to Ramses II for his conquest.

Once strategically placed on a headland high above the Nile, this ancient fortress is now at water level, trapped on an island by rising lake waters that are the result of the Aswan High Dam. Thanks to its once lofty position, Qasr Ibrim is the area's only ancient monument still in its original location, and archaeological work is ongoing.

Thought to have been constructed during the Middle Kingdom (2130–1649 BC), the structure had religious as well as military significance. Shrines were built to Horus, Hathor, and local gods of the First Cataract, and the worship of traditional Egyptian deities held on here well into the era of Christianity. Eventually, some of the temples were dismantled or converted into churches, and pilgrims recorded their journey by carving footprints into the rock. Note that the site is closed to visitors except for those taking Lake Nasser cruises, which stop here for a 15-minute photo op.

The oldest in Nubia, the Temple of Amada was started under the orders of Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC), and subsequent pharaohs continued its construction. Important inscriptions highlight ancient Egypt's military prowess against rebellious Syrians and a failed Libyan invasion. Between 1964 and 1975, the temple was moved to its current spot, about 2.5 km (1.5 miles) away from its original location. Unlike other temples in Nubia that had to be rescued from Lake Nasser, Amada could not be sawed into blocks for transport because that method would destroy its painted reliefs. Instead, a team of French architects devised a way to move the entire temple in one piece by placing it on rails and using a hydraulic system to haul it to higher ground.

This Ptolemaic Dynasty–era (305–30 BC) temple was dedicated to Thoth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom. When the structure was relocated from some 50 km (31 miles) away in the 1960s, archaeologists found a number of New Kingdom (1550–1077 BC) blocks had been reused in the later building.

Constructed by the great builder, Ramses II, the rock-cut Temple of Derr was dedicated to Amun, Ptah, and Ra-Horakhty, as well as, of course the egotistical pharaoh himself. Despite its desecration by early Christians and use as a church, the temple still retains some brightly painted wall reliefs. It was dismantled and moved here along with Amada in 1964 to save it from being drowned by Lake Nasser.