What is the main idea of the passage?

An international project rebuilt Abu Simbel above a new reservoir, whose dams also displaced Nubian communities. (The passage explains the reservoir’s human cost as well as the block-by-block temple rescue and cooperation.)

Why was each stone block marked?

So workers could rebuild it in the correct position. (Marking preserved the placement information needed after cutting the structure apart.)

What does “reservoir” mean?

a large stored body of water (The dam’s reservoir would cover the old site with water.)

When was the relocation work completed?

1968 (The third paragraph gives 1968 as the completion year.)

The Temples Moved to Higher Ground: Level 2 Reading Comprehension Questions

In the 1960s, a new dam on the Nile threatened the ancient temples at Abu Simbel in Egypt. The planned reservoir would cover their original site with water. The dams also forced many Nubian families to leave towns and villages that the rising water would submerge.

Egypt and Sudan asked for international help. Engineers and workers cut the temples into more than one thousand stone blocks. Many blocks weighed about thirty tons. Each piece was marked so it could return to the correct position.

The team rebuilt the temples on higher ground, about sixty-four meters above the old site and farther inland. An artificial hill helped reproduce the original setting. The work was completed in 1968.

The rescue did not move a whole mountain in one piece. It combined archaeology, engineering, funding, and cooperation across countries. The rebuilt site preserved the great carved figures and interior spaces while the reservoir formed below. Its survival changed what large projects attempted.

Comprehension questions