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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 Fourcades Secret War

A female version of the Indiana Jones story Christiane DesrochesNoblecourt was a daredevil whose reallife antics put Hollywood fiction to shameThe Guardian

In the 1960s the worlds attention was focused on a nailbiting 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 DesrochesNoblecourt the templesincluding the Temple of Dendur now at New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Artwould 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

Willful and determined DesrochesNoblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything As a member of the French Resistance in World War II she survived imprisonment by the Nazis in her fight to save the temples she defied two of the most daunting leaders of the postwar world Egypts President Abdel Nasser and Frances President Charles de Gaulle As she told one reporter You dont get anywhere without a fight you know

DesrochesNoblecourt also received help from a surprising source Jacqueline Kennedy Americas new First Lady persuaded her husband to help fund the rescue effort After a century and a half of Western plunder of Egypts ancient monuments DesrochesNoblecourt helped instead to preserve a crucial part of that cultural heritage