Things to Do in Egypt

High up on the west bank stands the elegant marble Tomb of Mohammed Shah Aga Khan, the 48th imam (leader) of the Ismaili sect, who died in 1957, and of his wife the Begum, who died in 2000. Aswan was their favourite wintering place, and the family's white villa is in the garden beneath the tomb. 

Spiritual leader of a worldwide Shi'ite sect, the Aga Khan was a very wealthy man. He was educated in Europe and became the 48th Imam in 1885, at the age of only seven. His grandson succeeded him on his death in 1957. During his lifetime the Aga Khan was knighted by the Queen of England, and received similar recognition from Germany, Turkey and other countries. It is said that in 1945, on his birthday, he was weighed in diamonds - he was a large man - and the jewels then distributed to his followers. 

The harsh, lunar landscape of the Valley of the Kings is the resting place of numerous New Kingdom pharaohs, whose remains were interred in tombs burrowed into rock. The 60-odd tombs which have been discovered (which may represent only half of the total tombs in the area) are identified by number rather than the name of their original inhabitant, and a handful of tombs are closed at any one time for restoration. Nonetheless there is more than enough to see, and it is better to pick out a representative sample rather than try to see every tomb.

Grave-robbers and museums have nabbed the items which were supposed to accompany rulers into the afterlife, but you can still see the work of some of the finest artisans of the ancient world, who glorified pharaohs in frescoes and wall reliefs. Graffiti shows that this extraordinary ensemble of antiquities was already a tourist attraction for the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Creating the Valley of the Kings was no simple undertaking: a small army of builders, engineers, engravers and other workers was required to carve the dozens of tombs out of sheer rock over the centuries.

Naturally they all had to be housed somewhere, ideally not too far away. But it was only with the discovery Valley of the Artisans (or Deir el-Medina), around the time of the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb, that we learnt more about their living conditions.

The outlines of the “workmen’s village” are still clearly visible, and extant reliefs offer a fascinating portrait of everyday life. All of this makes the Valley of the Artisans a pleasant change after countless monuments glorifying the pharaohs and their morbid fixation on the afterlife.

The boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled the New Kingdom in the 14th century, enjoys fame disproportionate to his short reign and modest achievements. This is mostly due to the discovery of his largely intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, his mummy adorned by a dazzling gold mask (now in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum, along with most of the tomb’s other bling).

Having risked the curse said to await anyone who disturbs the tomb’s rest, visitors may be slightly disappointed by its modest scale and relative lack of adornment. “King Tut” is, however, still in residence, his linen-wrapped mummy visible in a glass box watched over by richly colored wall paintings.

The vast Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari rivals the Pyramids as one of the great funerary monuments of the ancient world. Built into the towering cliff face which shelter the Valley of the Kings on the other side, it rises on three enormous terraces connected by ramps, each level marked with a colonnade of stark, largely unadorned square pillars.

Its namesake was one of the few female pharaohs of ancient Egypt, who not unfairly called her monument “Splendor of Splendors”. However, much of the construction dated from earlier rulers, starting with Mentuhotep II in 2050 BC. Numerous sphinxes and other statues have since disappeared, making the whole structure appear even more monolithic. 

The cool stone interior provides welcome relief from the pitiless heat of this region, and features well-preserved wall reliefs and hieroglyphics, some in brilliant colors.

The largest of Luxor’s temples, Karnak was one of the most sacred sites in ancient Egypt. It marked the ascendancy of Thebes (present day Luxor) as the capital of the New Kingdom, with construction beginning in the 16th century BC. Most subsequent rulers tinkered with the complex so it represents a great crash course in different pharaonic styles.

The major site here is the Temple of Amon, the largest place of worship ever constructed. There the Great Hypostyle Hall, which was once roofed, dwarfs visitors with its dozens of colossal columns reaching 25 yards (23 meters) into the sky.

Other highlights include the serene sacred lake, gargantuan statues of rulers and gods, as well as the best selection of obelisks in Egypt.

The Unfinished Obelisk is a huge discarded granite obelisk. Three sides of the shaft, which is nearly 138 feet (42m) long, were completed except for the inscriptions. At 1,168 tonnes, the completed obelisk would have been the single heaviest piece of stone the Egyptians ever fashioned. However, a crack appeared in the rock at a late stage in the process. So it lies where the disappointed stonemasons abandoned it, still partly attached to the parent rock, with no indication of what it was intended for. It does give us an excellent insight into how these massive stone sculptures were made however.

Upon entering the quarry, steps lead down from the surrounding ramp into the pit of the obelisk where there are ancient pictographs of dolphins and ostriches or flamingos, thought to have been painted by workers at the quarry.

Wreck diving is popular off Tiran Island, surrounded by coral reefs and snorkeling lagoons in the Red Sea.

The wreck of the Sangria can be clearly seen here, its doomed hull rising above the surface of the sea.

The lagoons surrounding Tiran are ideal for swimming, snorkeling and diving, and the island is a popular destination for Red Sea excursions and diving tours.

Dating from 180BC, this is an unusual temple because it is duplicated, mirroring itself on either side of a central axis. This is because it was dedicated to two gods: Sobek, god of fertility and creator of the world along with Hathor and Khonsu, and also Horus, and each needed their own set of rooms. Sobek was the crocodile god so, of course, crocodiles were mummified for him. Some of the hundreds that have been discovered nearby are now on display in the temple.

Time, the Nile River, earthquakes and later builders taking the stone for other buildings, have all taken a toll on this building. The surrounding town of Kom Ombo is now home to many of the Nubians displaced by the flooding to make Lake Nasser.