Western Desert Oases Places

Bahariyya Oasis

Ancient travelers had to cross a dune belt several miles wide (and hundreds of miles long) to reach the Bahariyya Oasis from the Nile Valley. Then it took them an entire day to descend the cliffs that hem the oasis on all sides. These days you glide easily along the asphalt road at high speed, only slowing down to enjoy the descent that cuts through the cliffs and leads into the oasis. At this point, you must slow down in other ways, too, for you are stepping back into an older time. The mud-brick ruins of a Coptic monastery, on the right, is the first sign of civilization. This is where the ancient caravan roads from Cairo, al-Fayyum, and al-Minya once converged before reaching Bahariyya.

It's easy to adjust to the rural way of life here, not least because the people are so friendly and helpful. Bahariyya is the only one of the four southern oases that isn't part of the New Valley Governorate (Giza's governorate administers it), so it is the least modernized. As a result, you get a better idea of how people lived in the oases for thousands of years.

Bahariyya is rich in pharaonic, Greek, Roman, and Coptic history; however, the historical sights have pretty much been off-limits to the public. Things started to change in the mid-1990s, when a tomb-filled cemetery thought to contain hundreds of mummies was found south of Bawiti in what has been dubbed the Valley of the Mummies (also called the Valley of the Golden Mummies and the Valley of the 10,000 Mummies). More than 200 mummies have been uncovered in the area since 1999, and in 2000 archaeologists opened the long-sought tomb of an influential 26th-Dynasty ruler of Bahariyya nearby. The opening of this coffin, along with some others, was broadcast live on television in the United States, and the site is now open to the public. In addition, some of the mummies found in the Valley of the Mummies are on view in Bawiti.