The area known as Nubia lies today partly in Egypt and partly in the Republic of the Sudan. A large portion of the northern part of ancient Nubia currently lies submerged under the reservoir formed behind Egypt's High Dam at Aswan.

Climate and Natural Resources

This land has one of the harshest climates in the world. The temperatures are high throughout most of the year, and rainfall is infrequent.
The prevailing winds can cause problems with agriculture fields and villages. They usually blow from the north.
These climactic conditions were probably unpleasant at times, but agriculture fields usually yielded enough food to support the Nubian's.
In ancient times, however, the Nubian landscape became well known for other, more exotic resources that attracted the attention of neighbouring countries, particularly Egypt.
Materials commonly exported from or through Nubia were gold, ivory, and ebony. Some of these materials actually originated in areas south of Nubia, so Nubia served as a corridor for trade.

Ancient Nubia
Topology

This paragraph and the image below describe the geographic and topographic area as it existed before the construction of the High Dam.
Nubia's most conspicuous topographic feature was the Nile. Throughout Nubia, the flow of the river was periodically broken up by cataract, areas where outcroppings of enormous granite rocks which prevent easy water navigation. These cataracts, six in total, were the result of Nubian geology.
The cataracts serve as markers of Nubian’s borders.
The First Cataract, just south of Aswan, marks the northern planting crops.
The southern border, though it fluctuated over time, lies near the Sixth Cataract (in Sudan).
The eastern and western borders were generally marked by the extent of the cultivated fields on either side of the river.
The cataracts also divided Nubia into different zones, which differ from one to another topographically: Lower Nubia, Upper Nubia, and Southern Nubia.
The Nile Valley in Lower Nubia is similar to the Nile Valley in Egypt. The river here is broad and easily navigated, with a wide floodplain available for cultivation.
Upper Nubia often presents a much harsher environment.
This view shows Philae before the completion of the first Aswan Dam.

Archaeological History

Nubia is the homeland of Africa's earliest black culture with a history which can be traced from 3100 B.C. onward through Nubian monuments and artefacts, as well as written records from Egypt and Rome .
This land, which now includes Nubia , is a land of enormous distances, and its exploration was long impeded by problems of transport and political unrest. In the last hundred years, Nubia has slowly yielded its heritage, its vanished peoples, abandoned cities and lost kingdoms brought to light by the excavator and copyist of inscriptions.
The sites of ancient Nubia first received extensive attention from archaeologists during the First Archaeological Survey of Nubia (1907-1911), when the Aswan Dam in Egypt was enlarged and the resulting reservoir flooded portions of the Nubian Nile Valley . The Archaeological Survey was a salvage project, designed to explore systematically all the sites in the area that would be flooded.
The majority of the sites that were actually excavated were dated to the earliest periods of Nubian history.
The Second Archaeological Survey of Nubia (1929-1934) was made necessary by a second enlargement of the Aswan Dam.
All together, twenty-four monuments were dismantled and relocated and many others were identified and documented before the area was flooded. Four temples were donated to those nations who had contributed the largest effort.
This is why, the arches of the Kalabsha temple is standing at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin .
There is no way to estimate the total number of temples and tombs which now lie at the bottom of Lake Nasser .

Kalabsha Temple  

Kalabsha Temple dedicated to the fertility and lower Nubian sun god Mandulis and the decorations was attributed to the Nubian Pharaoh Arkamani from the 3rd century BC.
Kalabsha Temple was one of several ancient monuments relocated in 1970 as part of a UNESCO campaign.
Kalabsha temple was the largest free-standing one of Egyptian Nubia and after Abu Simbel the most important one.
There is also a small chapel and gate on Elephantine Island (at Aswan ) from Kalabsha, and another one was given to the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin as a present for the German support.
To get an idea of how the area looks like, in former days and today, there are some pictures.
It was originally built at Kalabsha (Talmis) and moved 50 km north to its present location at New Kalabsha (Chellal), an island 10 km south of Aswan , together with other monuments from Nubia , including the Kiosk of Qertassi (Kertassi), the Temples of Beit al-Wali and Garf Hussein.
The site is reachable from Aswan by taxi and by boat, depending on the water level or with a cruiser line from High Dam. Although the island is developed for tourism with paths, information etc, only a few visit it because of lacked transportation opportunities.

Nubia Today

The modern inhabitants of southern Egypt and Sudan still refer to themselves as Nubians. They speak the Nubian language as well as Arabic. Thousands of Nubians from the north were forced to relocate from their endangered homelands to be resettled in Egypt and Sudan .
These people once farmed the narrow margins of the river, planting palm groves along its edge. Hoisting triangular lateen sails above their boats, they hauled rock, transported villagers, and fished.
A distinct group for centuries, the Nubians served the pharaohs as traders and elite military forces. During the Late Period, Nubians travelled north, invading Luxor to re-establish classical Pharaon culture.
For centuries, the Nubians have taken great pride in their unique culture, refusing to intermarry.
In modern times, their pride has led to valiant attempts to maintain their village life even when nearly all of the men worked and lived hundreds of kilometres to the north.

Village Life

Originally Nubian villages were closely knit, celebrating births and marriages with village-wide festivals, rituals that always included the river. The newborn child was washed in its life-giving flow. A bride and groom bathed at their marriage and after a death, women came to wash and offer henna and perfume to the spirits of the river.
Although the Nubians converted, first to Christianity and then to Islam, beliefs in the water angels persist, and the people continue to petition these spirits for favours and blessings.

Dislocations

Over 150,000 Nubians ( Egypt and Sudan ) were forced to relocate off the land their ancestors had called home for over 5,000 years. Over 45 Nubian villages were washed away along the banks of the Nile south of Aswan .
The Nubian lifestyle suddenly changed when the British built the first Aswan dam in 1902. Its rising fore bay drowned their durra plants, choked their date palms, and swallowed their mosques and homes, forcing the people to rebuild their villages higher up the barren slopes. They attempted to cultivate the new banks of the river, but the sandy soil lacked fertile silt and production levels fell. Many of the men left their families to seek work in the towns, travelling as far as Cairo .
The dam was raised three times within 75 years, ultimately sending over 85% of the Nubian men north to find work. The women and children left behind attempted to maintain the village customs, but with husbands and fathers returning only a couple of times a year, traditional rites and festivals were often abandoned. In smaller ways, too, their lifestyle continued to change: tin pots, aluminium pans, and plastic plates replaced woven baskets, for the date palms that had supplied the fronds were now under the lake. The flat roofs, once supported by palm trunks, gave way to vaulted domes, and even dates themselves, a staple of the Nubian diet, had to be imported.
Although some villagers had earlier moved to Aswan , the High Dam forced a final exodus of the Nubians. When 50,000 trekked north, they could at last claim fertile land. Although living in an alien culture, they were no longer solely dependent on wages sent from the cities; families could bring their men home again.

(c) Home Arcor 2006

The Partially Inundated Temples of the Philae after 1902
Photographer unknown (c) Kelsey Museum

http://www.nile-cruises.com/photoalb-map.html

www.homestead.com/wysinger/nubians11.html

Original location of the Temple and village of Kalabsha
(c) Uni of Chicago 2006

Map of Kalabsha Temple at its new site
(c) Uni of Chicago 2006

Kalabsha Temple at its current site
(c) Ägyptenfans 2006