The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York tells the story of the Temple of Dendur, an Egyptian sanctuary raised around 23 BCE for Emperor Augustus, and how it came to leave the Nile valley when Egypt began building the Aswan High Dam in 1960. It follows the international effort of fifty countries to save what they could from the dam's rising waters, and Egypt's gift of the temple to the American people in gratitude, plus the rivalry among American cities that followed. Look closely at the sandstone as you walk through it; it still carries graffiti carved by travelers across two thousand years.