UNESCO's Nubian Campaign, the international rescue effort prompted by the construction of the Aswan High Dam, had its official inauguration on March 8, 1960. The campaign mobilized governments, archaeologists, conservators, and museums to document, dismantle, move, and preserve monuments and artworks in Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia before Lake Nasser submerged major sites. One important art-historical outcome was the excavation of Faras, where a Polish expedition led by Kazimierz Michalowski uncovered exceptionally preserved Christian Nubian wall paintings from the cathedral at ancient Pachoras. Removed from the walls, stabilized, and divided between Warsaw and Khartoum, these works became central to the Faras Gallery at the National Museum in Warsaw and to the modern study of Nubian Christian art.
The campaign became a model for international cultural-heritage rescue and transformed the visibility of Nubian wall painting.