The page guardian popped his head into the Temple of Amun and said he would get up quickly at the twilight call to prayer. Then he strolled away down the dirt street towards the mosque tucked among finger trees, and I found myself alone in the old church with a town dog, a little boy playing marbles and the ghost of Alexander the Great. Alexander unapologetically arrived in the distant oasis of Siwa in Egypt’s eastern desert in the spring of 331 BC. World conquering was going splendidly. He had just cut the string on a brand-new area, Alexandria, after defeating the Persian king in two crucial battles. Within the year, his lands did stretch from the borders of current Libya to the Indus. He made a strange trip across the sand lakes of the Sahara at this point, his ear ringing with applause. He was looking for anything. He figured out where it was going to be in the desert of Egypt. Looking for things in plains seems to be a desire for some people. All that untapped area makes room for legends and miracles, hopes and dreams, and other possibilities. In a world of orbs, truth can be a little wet. People from a particular cast of characters are drawn to the confusion of deserts and the sense of options beyond the ordinary. The Temple of Amun in Siwa, where Alexander the Great went to seek an visitors with the oracle © Alamy I called in on the priests first. I was heading for the temples of Wadi El Natrun as I left Cairo in a 4×4 with a version of Herodotus, a package of times, and a sense of comfort that I was escaping the crowds of the Nile river. Christian asceticism began in the Iranian desert. A young man named Anthony lived in an empty plain monument in the third century, where he spent the majority of his waking time fighting with the lord in a variety of divine ways, from lascivious girls to wild dogs. The concept went world. Fingers crossed for fantasies as wealthy as Anthony’s as young changes from Ireland to Russia were fleeing to rocks and beehive huts for life of neglect and stale bread by the 4th century. At Deir al-Suryani, one of four Christian monks in the sanctuary of Wadi El Natrun, just off the plain path between Cairo and Alexandria, I had drink with Father Elarion. He was happier than those first plain fanatics, who were pudgy, and white-bearded. Hardship seemed to be off the list in the modern monastery, if you don’t qualify the first rising. In temples that have not yet adopted the custom of pews, the monks wake every morning at 3 am for two and a half time of singing and meditation. I followed Father Elarion into the 10th-century chapel where new repairs have revealed beautiful paintings. Started heads of saints and prophets, which were once painted a decade ago, glared out at us where the clay had been taken. Elarion beckoned me into a small space at the back of the temple. An earlier priest, Bishoi, lived in this grotto in the 4th century. A string was suspended from the ceiling, like the one to which Bishoi may weave his hair to stop him nodding off during long nights of meditation. In Deir Anba Bishoi, a nearby convent, he is buried. The priests say his body is completely alive, a plain miracle. Second to him is Paul of Tammah, who is renowned for having committed murder seven days. The Ain al-Suryani convent in Wadi El Natrun © Getty ImagesRecent repairs have revealed beautiful murals painted a decade ago © AlamyThe Coptic convent was thought to have been founded in the seventh century © Getty ImagesFrom Wadi El Natrun I headed towards the sanctuary of Bahariya. Muhammad Mursi, the swashbuckling figure in turban and dark shades, was in high spirits when I arrived. He loved the desert, the sense of freedom, though I felt the lack of traffic police might have been part of the thrill. He resisted,” It is the space.” ” Everything feels bigger, more magnificent”. The desert swathed away from the car’s windows, scarred, pockmarked, and desiccated like some mythic beast’s staked hide. Far off, watery mirages shimmered. We arrived at Qasr el Sagha, a Pharaonic temple that was standing alone on a desert ridge, about 40 kilometers away from Fayoum. The site guardian welcomed us with a tray of tea. As we sat in the temple, a cool breeze pelted down the stone passageway. The guardian, who hadn’t seen anyone for several days in this remote posting, told stories of desert djinns. He claimed that he overheard them howling to one another at night. Sometimes there is the sound of running. They cry like lost children other times, and it was this he feared the most. The Sahara has had many incarnations. It was a savannah similar to east Africa ten million years ago. In the hills of Fezzan in Libya, in the Tassilin’Ajjer in Algeria, in the caves of the Gilf Kebir in Egypt, animals are painted on the rocks: rhinoceros and giraffe, elephant and hippopotamus, buffalo and antelope, followed by lithe human figures. But long before that, these areas were a shallow sea, home to mangroves, clams, shellfish, turtles, and whales, deep in the Eocene period, over 35 million years ago. Wadi al-Hitan, where palaeontologists have discovered fossilised skeletons, some of them whales, from the Eocene period © AlamySome of the whale fossils show their evolution from land mammals to sea creatures © AlamyLike oceans, deserts are an arena of winds. They serve as a scouring tool, and 3 cm of the Sahara are thought to have been wiped away every century, gradually revealing a lost past. At Wadi al-Hitan, a Unesco protected area, palaeontologists have discovered over 200 fossilised skeletons from the Eocene period. Among them are the ancient whales known as archaeoceti. The skeletons reveal a dramatic moment in their evolution — their transition from land mammals to sea creatures. I went from one skeleton to another, following the marked paths across the desert, beneath a burning sky, and on foot. They are remarkably complete, their vertebra casting tails of shadow, their ribs like flared wings. Their rear limbs ‘ delicate bones were clearly feet, not fins. Egypt is full of ancient wonders but few are as astonishing as these walking whales, from a time tens of millions of years before the ancestors of humans stood upright. I spent two nights in Bahariya and Fayoum, both of which were in small, family-owned lodges owned by Tzila, an Egyptian couple who had started a desert escape business. The first was rather elegant, with a palm-shaded pool in the garden, the second a simpler affair. The car swayed and rolled in the sand seas the following morning as we crossed the open desert from Bahariya. Shifting gears, Muhammad roared up dunes. The car paused, tipped sharply, and then tobogganed down the other side on the ridgelines. Around us, the desert blossomed into fantastical forms. The surfaces of the so-called Black Desert were covered in black volcanic basalt, charred outcrops, and stands of quartz. Further on, in the White Desert, the Sahara suddenly became a world of limestone and soft white chalk, eroded into bizarre shapes — towers and pyramids and crescents, domes and pinnacles and giant misshapen outcrops, erupting from the hard white surface, cracked like a frozen lake. Moonlight flooded the desert floor and lit it with ancient seashells when night fell. Muhammad was disappointed I had not arranged a desert camp. Next time, we’ll bring our tents and spend three nights camping out here. You will love it. He sighed as the desert is always” the beginning of the world.” The ruins of the Shali fortress in Siwa, in the Sahara desert © Alamy But I was heading to Siwa, the furthest oasis in Egypt’s western desert, and my time was short. Since the direct route from Bahariya to Siwa is currently closed, it was necessary to travel back to Cairo and Alexandria, then travel to Marsa Matruh’s coast road before crossing the sands as Alexander had done. One of the unexpected characters drawn to these deserts, and to Siwa, was Lee Miller, an American model, photographer and war correspondent who was played by Kate Winslet in the 2023 film, Lee. She had wed Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey in 1934. Lonely in her marriage, unimpressed with Cairene society, she set off for remote Siwa with friends, following ill-defined desert tracks in her Packard car. Miller was looking for something as well. In her case it was escape from banality, and the promise of those thrilling surreal desert landscapes. Lee Miller ArchivesOne of Miller’s photographs of Siwa Oasis, taken in 1939, is a self-portrait of her with her husband Aziz Eloui Bey in 1935. All rights reserved. Leemiller. co. uk Siwa is still a long way from anywhere. Eight hours were needed for me to travel from Alexandria. It is a good road now though, in places, drifts of wind-blown sand threatened to overwhelm it. Siwa’s lush plantations of palms, lush alfalfa fields, bubbling water channels, birdsong, shade, and repose are all the hallmarks of Siwa’s oases. Miller was fascinated by Siwa’s otherness. Nearly 3, 000 kilometers to the west of Siwans are Berbers, not Arabs, who speak a dialect that is comparable to that of those in the Atlas Mountains. Among its unique former customs was the isolation of young men from the age of 20 to 40 who slept in caves outside the town to attend to the fields. Although King Fouad prohibited gay marriages when he visited the oasis in 1928, these zaggalah, as they were known, were renowned for their love of music, dance, palm liquor, and acceptance of homosexuality. The Adrère Amellal lodge, a traditional qasr, which is a cross between a sprawling mansion and a fortress © AlamyA dining room at Adrère Amellal. AlamyI stayed at the magnificent Adrère Amellal, a traditional qasr that resembles a sprawling mansion and a fortress. The hotel is lit entirely by candles at night. Overlooking a salt lake, its back to a white mountain, it is built in vernacular style. Although the furnishings are simple and the rooms are elegantly rustic, I had a feeling that this was one of the most luxurious hotels I’ve ever been to. At night the whole place is lit entirely by hundreds of candles, mimicking the dense constellations of a desert sky. Mounir Neamatalla, a Cairene environmental engineer who is the author and owner of Adrère Amellal, has just organized an exhibition of Miller’s images of Siwa. It hangs in a neighbouring property, the black and white photographs simply framed on blank adobe walls, the windows open to the desert. The hotel’s palm-shaded pool and the exterior of Adrère Amellal, with the mountain behind There are pictures of Miller and her bohemian friends, smiling into the sun, intoxicated by the place. Something about her many struggles is captured in the most recent movie. The photographs of her so happy here in her desert escape were moving. Later, I traveled to the Temple of Amun, where Alexander had an audience while performing the oracle. He had travelled to Siwa with a small bank of attendants, mounted on camels, eight days across the desert. The story was typical of the desert. They navigated by the stars, they got lost in sand storms, their water ran out. The story has the customary embellishments because this is in the desert. In his account, Ptolemy tells us that two talking snakes pointed Alexander in the right direction. Cleopatra’s Bath at Siwa was photographed by Miller in 1936. All rights reserved leemiller. ukI sat in the forecourt during the gathering dusk as the temple guardian sped away for prayer. This was where Alexander would have stood waiting, over two thousand years ago. Then I climbed the steps to the main chamber, where some historians believed he would have been ushered before an Amun statue. Bats were already swooping through the twilight, in and out of the ancient ruin. I could see holes all around the walls. How the oracle actually gave its responses is disputed, but some experts have suggested the temple priests hid behind the walls and spoke the wisdom of the god through these holes. Alexander is said to have had two goals at Siwa. It is thought he wanted to be recognised as a god in his own right, a son to Amun, and he wanted to know if he would be master of the world. However, Alexander himself kept to himself a secret about his questions for the oracle and the prophecies that were raised, saying only that “he had heard what pleased him.” Alexander did go on to conquer much of the known world, but seems to have lost himself in the process, his behaviour increasingly disrupted by drunkenness. Eight years after Siwa, he would be buried in Babylon’s palace of Nebuchadnezzar, after a protracted bout of drinking, betrayed by worries that Siwa’s oracle had failed to calm him. His empire did not survive his death. He was given some gratifying prophecies, but they quickly turned out to be desert mirages. DetailsStanley Stewart was a guest of Original Travel (originaltravel. a nine-night trip to Alexandria, Cairo, Siwa, Fayoum, and Bahariya costs £5, 400, including return flights from London, a driver and guides. ‘ Lee Miller’s Egypt’, a book to accompany the exhibition in Siwa, is available from its curator Zelda Cheatle (zeldacheatle .com ) Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
heavy in the Egyptian plain, on the road of legends and mirages.
