Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction - Paperback

by Lynne Olson (Author)

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice - The remarkable story of the intrepid French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam, by the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War

"A female version of the Indiana Jones story . . . [Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt] was a daredevil whose real-life antics put Hollywood fiction to shame."--The Guardian

In the 1960s, the world's attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: the international campaign to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples from drowning in the floodwaters of the gigantic new Aswan High Dam. But the coverage of this unprecedented rescue effort completely overlooked the daring French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples--including the Temple of Dendur, now at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art--would currently be at the bottom of a vast reservoir. It was an unimaginably complex project that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground.

Author Biography

Lynne Olson is the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade's Secret War, Last Hope Island, Those Angry Days, and Citizens of London. She has been a consulting historian for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. She lives in Washington, D.C.