The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction
September 1, 2022
With the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, a dozen ancient Egyptian temples were set to be inundated. They were saved by the efforts of fierce French archaeologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, who battled Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and French President Charles de Gaulle as she persuaded 50 countries worldwide to contribute the funds needed for the temples' rescue. From the New York Times best-selling author of Last Hope Island.
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Starred review from November 21, 2022
Bestseller Olson follows up Madame Fourcade’s Secret War with another scintillating biography of a woman who worked in the French Resistance against the Nazis. But Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt (1913–2011) had an even more impressive second act, according to Olson: as an Egyptologist, she spearheaded “the greatest single example of international cultural cooperation the world has ever known,” a campaign in the 1950s and ’60s to save Nubian temples and other antiquities from flooding caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Throughout, Olson details the misogyny Desroches-Noblecourt dealt with from her male colleagues at the Louvre and the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, even as she reached the top of her field. Beginning in 1958, she helped raised money from dozens of nations to dismantle the temples block-by-block, transport them up the Nile, and rebuild them on higher ground. Olson also credits first lady Jackie Kennedy with helping persuade her husband’s administration to support the campaign, and documents Desroches-Noblecourt’s involvement in a 1967 Paris exhibition of King Tutankhamun’s treasures. Enriched by fascinating digressions into Egyptian history, museum rivalries, the plundering of archaeological sites, the 1956 Suez Crisis, and more, this is a captivating portrait of a pathbreaking woman. Readers will be enthralled. Photos.
December 15, 2022
The life of an archaeologist who deserves to be better known. In her latest, bestselling historian Olson, who specializes in World War II-era politics (Citizens of London, Last Hope Island, Those Angry Days), turns her attention to archaeologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt (1913-2011). The book's first third is a delightful account of the career of an intelligent woman in early-20th-century France. Curious and self-confident, Desroches-Noblecourt became fascinated by ancient Egypt and excelled at the elite �cole du Louvre. "While most of her professors thought highly of her," writes Olson, "she was treated like a pariah by several of her fellow Egyptology students, all of whom were male." She shattered the myth that women could not tolerate the miseries of the Egyptian desert, and, unlike many of her colleagues, she treated Egyptian laborers with respect, a behavior that bore impressive fruit later. At age 21, Desroches-Noblecourt became project manager in the Louvre department of Egyptian antiquities, "the only woman at the time to hold a professional position in the department." Olson recounts Egyptian history culminating in the 1952 military coup, which brought Abdel Nasser to power. Infuriated at losing their colonial privileges, Britain and France, with Israel's cooperation, invaded Egypt in 1956, failing but poisoning relations with those two nations. This was the situation in 1960 when construction began on the massive Aswan Dam, built across the Nile. Its reservoir, notes the author, would destroy "hundreds of temples, tombs, churches, fortresses, inscriptions, and carvings--the fruit of half a dozen cultures and civilizations." At this point, Desroches-Noblecourt went into action. In the middle third, Olson describes her dogged but successful efforts to convince individuals and governments (including Egypt's) to preserve these priceless structures. The U.S. refused to participate until Jacqueline Kennedy persuaded her newly elected husband. Olson's conclusion digresses into other archaeological controversies and Jackie Kennedy's life, but readers will not complain. The author provides a fine account of Desroches-Noblecourt's long, distinguished career. An expert biography of the most prestigious Egyptologist of her time.
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Starred review from December 1, 2022
Olson, who has written extensively about WWII, most recently in Madame Fourcade's Secret War (2019), now spotlights a pioneering French female Egyptologist. Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt fell in love with Egypt's rich history and wealth of archaeological treasures at a young age, prompting her to study the subject at the Louvre in the 1930s, a time when women pursuing archaeology was unheard of. During WWII, she bravely joined the Resistance and helped smuggle messages out of Vichy-controlled France. In the late 1950s, she embarked on what would be her most monumental achievement, leading an international coalition to move several ancient temples in Nubia out of the way of the flooding that would be brought about by the construction of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile. The most daunting of these projects was a herculean effort to shift the gigantic monuments of the temple Abu Simbel, which required carefully breaking up the large statues to relocate them. The epic project involved funding and labor from multiple countries. Desroches-Noblecourt didn't rest on her laurels after this decade-long undertaking; she continued to excavate, rediscover tombs, and publish for the rest of her life. Olson provides a gripping account of an extraordinary life.
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