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| Decorated Tomb (Muzawaka) at Dakhla |
The next day, we had to drive back to Bahariya, past the
white and black deserts again. Our first stop was Black Mountain, on top of
which there was the English House - ruins of a lookout point that the
British had during WW2. A good bit of exercise to start the day!
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| The English House |
For lunch, we stopped off in a person’s
house. Apparently, he was the only person in the village who had electricity. However,
you could see solar panels here and there in the village, so things are slowly
changing. The place may have been simple, but they’d got the interior looking
beautiful.
After lunch, we visited the museum of the valley
of the golden mummies. Around 250 mummies have been excavated in this area, but
they estimate there are probably around ten thousand in total. If I recall
correctly, there will be an exhibition hall dedicated to them in the new museum
in Cairo, but Bahariya itself has a museum of eight or nine of them for public
viewing.
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| A Golden Mummy |
After that, it was on to the temple of
Alexander the Great, the tombs of the Nobles, the Muftella temple, another hot
spring, and then the salt lake.
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| Ruins of Temple of Alexander the Great |
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| Detail from Tombs of the Nobles |
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| Muftella Temple |
That evening, when we checked into the
hotel, the police visited to make sure we were okay. From this point on, we had
to sign a form each day to say that we did not require a police escort.
The next day we visited Dakhla and Farafra.
We started off visiting the smallest oasis, then a long car journey but on our
way we could see that solar electricity is starting to become a reality in
Egypt, which was good.
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| Dakhla Oasis |
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| Solar Electricity! |
Dakhla is known for being very beautiful and the scenery as we drove was wonderful. Our next stop was Dar Al Hagar temple, where the
ground we walked on was still full of broken, ancient Egyptian pottery. It’s
mindblowing how much there is in Egypt that there isn’t enough money for to
excavate. Ancient treasures are everywhere! The temple was built in around 54-68 AD for festivals and decorations were later added by Domitian and Romans, right up to 300 AD.
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| Beautiful Dakhla Scenery |
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| Dar Al Hagar Temple |
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| Inside Dar Al Hagar Temple |
The next site was the astonishing Muzawaka
tombs from the Roman times in around 100-200 AD. Muzawaka means “decorated” and
there are two tombs open for visiting, but, once again, there are many more in
the area yet to be explored. The ceilings of the tombs almost collapsed, so they have been
restored.
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| Muzawaka Tomb |
After that, we visited the very different
antique city of Al Quassr. It dates back to the 12th Century and
extends to the Ottoman period. It was a large complex with the old school,
prison, court, and mosque, as well as the former dwellings. It was a day of
traveling through history.
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| Mosque in Al Quasr |
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| Typical Road in Al Quasr |
After that, it was time to check into the
hotel and sign again that we did not require a police escort.
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