Destinations: The Oasis of Amun Siwa, Egypt - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > Archaeology Odyssey > January/February 2000

Destinations: The Oasis of Amun Siwa, Egypt

Across the Great Sand Sea lies an ancient necropolis, an oracle of the gods and a melted city.

For the ancient Berbers who traveled across the parched desert on camels, the fertile oasis of Amun Siwa was a paradise; for modern travelers, it’s a trip back in time. Sixty-five miles from the Libyan border, in Egypt’s barren Sahara desert, Siwa lies in a fertile depression about 60 feet below sea level. It is surrounded by enormous dunes, shaped like pyramids or flat-topped plateaus, that seem to stretch into the sky. Approaching the Siwa oasis on the road from Cairo, we see trees and shrubs begin to dot the landscape; then, suddenly, Gebel el-Mawta, the Mountain of Death, […]

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Footnotes

1.

Some scholars have recently suggested it may be even older, as early as the 3rd Dynasty (2649–2575 B.C.), but these claims are still being investigated.