THESCRAPPEDPROJECT

Carl Barks thought up more stories than there were ever published! This boggles the mind, because he is well-known for his more than 500 unique, published stories in a time span of only 25 years, but it would seem that Barks' mind was working with new ideas and synopses all of the time. Even at nighttime! His wife Garé occasionally woke up and saw him scribbling down ideas on his bedside notebook, ideas which he literally had dreamed up!
With that kind of built-in idea fountain it would have been nice for fans to know just a little of the ideas that never went beyond the initial stages, some of which can be seen in several pages of this website (see examples HERE and HERE). One story idea that Barks himself mentioned in a few later interviews was a long Scrooge treasure hunt adventure, which was to take place in Egypt, but Barks chose to scrap the promising concept. This is an account of what is known about the project.

Barks got his basic plot ideas from a multitude of sources besides his own gifted mind. The Egypt story was triggered by a short article in a magazine. In the February 6, 1961, issue of Newsweek he stumbled over this short article, in which the gigantic, ongoing building project of a second dam across the Nile and the cultural precautions to be considered was the subject:

Barks made two short, initial synopses right away. The first one tells briefly how the main story would flow, while the second one has a few more ideas and starts out a bit more descriptive and detailed. They are both displayed below with transcripts:

Uncle Scrooge gets contract to move the
palace of the Kings from the Nile to higher
ground, on account of the site is going
to be flooded by the Aswan Dam.

As the stones of the palace are removed,
a tunnel is uncovered. This leads to a
vast treasure back in the mountain.

The ducks are back inside trying to remove
the treasure when the rains strike upstream.
Then the race is on to get the treasure out
before the flood comes and backs up against
the dam.

Open on S at scene of bidding for contract.
Names of other bidders and bids are announced.
Then S's name is mentioned and his bid - free.
Don can't understand how S could be so dumb,
or generous.

Maybe a phrenologist has told S his head
shape is that of an archeologist. S feels that
as an archeologist he'd be a great success.
That leads him to bid cheaply for the
Egyptian moving job.

I'm kind of mulling the idea of having him take a contract to move the ancient Egyptian palaces and statues that are threatened with flooding by the Aswan Dam. Naturally, he finds a hidden shaft leading down into the bowels of history, and therein finds uncountable tons of sparklers. The rains come early to the Ethiopian highlands, the Nile rushes toward the newly completed dam. The shaft and all the toiling ducks in the awesome treasure pits will be submerged as the roiling torrent slams against the unyielding barrier of the towering new dam. Does Uncle Scrooge get the rocks out of the cellar in time?

Then Barks began to have second thoughts about the project fearing that it might turn out to be too political. Egypt's strong political leader, President Gamal Abdel Nasser, was keen to have the dam internationally financed and the USA and England on the one side and the USSR (the Soviet Union) on the other were interested. The Soviets ended up funding the gigantic project and construction began in 1960.
Before this decision several important incidents had taken place in the powder keg region; the USA had offered Egypt an arms deal which had been turned down, Nasser had recognized communist China, Israel had defeated Egyptian forces in a brief conflict, and Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal. No wonder that Barks chose to scrap his story due to the region's continuing, unruly political history...

So, the Aswan Dam project was completed, but Barks' project was scrapped. Maybe YOU feel inclined to finish it???