Oases of Egypt: From Little Egypt to Bahariya's Golden Mummies

Nov 06, 2025 0

Egypt, a land celebrated for its iconic pyramids and the majestic Nile, also harbors lesser-known treasures: its enchanting oases. These fertile havens, scattered across the Western Desert, offer a unique blend of natural beauty, rich history, and captivating archaeological sites. Among them, Faiyum, Siwa, and Bahariya stand out as prime examples of Egypt's hidden gems.

Kharga Oasis

Faiyum Oasis: An Artificial Paradise

Faiyum Oasis, located 100 km southeast of Cairo, is celebrated as the only artificial oasis in Egypt and one of the country's most enchanting natural spots. Its history dates back to ancient Egypt, when it was known as Shedet. The city also carried names such as Crocodilopolis, Karanis, and Kahun.

In the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt (c.2613-2181 BCE), Faiyum was referred to as Ta-She, meaning "Land of the Lakes" or "Land of the Southern Lakes" by the kings of Memphis. During the 12th dynasty, in the golden age known as the Middle Kingdom, Faiyum played a crucial role in shaping Egyptian culture. However, its influence waned during the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt (1570-1070 BC).

The city experienced a revival during the Ptolemaic dynasty (323-30 BC) and the Roman period (30 BC-646 CE), but unfortunately declined again. Faiyum was highly regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the twenty-first nome of Upper Egypt, known as Atef-Pehu, meaning "Northern Sycamore."

The city is renowned today for its Faiyum Portraits, a collection of beautifully rendered mummy masks created in later time periods. These masks, painted on wood with pigmented wax, represent the Greek settlers in Egypt. Faiyum served as a center for trade during the 7th century in the Islamic periods.

Faiyum portrait

Faiyum City began as an arid desert basin, transformed into a lush oasis when a branch of the Nile silted up and diverted water to it. The region's history dates back to around 3000 BC, with Neolithic settlements lining the lake's shores and the emergence of the city of Crocodilopolis on the southern ridge.

In 2300 BC, the Bahr Yussef canal was created to connect the Nile River to the natural lake. During the 12th dynasty, pharaohs used Faiyum's lake as a reservoir for water storage. They undertook extensive waterworks to transform the lake into a massive reservoir, leading some to believe it was artificially excavated. The lake was abandoned around 230 BC due to the shrinking size of the nearby Nile branch.

Faiyum was a crucial center for farming, royal pyramid building, and tomb construction during the Middle Kingdom and the Ptolemaic dynasty. During the Roman period, it became a major agricultural supplier. The people of Faiyum practiced a unique burial tradition, combining mummification with portraits placed over the mummy wrappings. These Faiyum portraits offer a remarkable glimpse into the diverse society of the time, featuring Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Libyans, and others. In the late 1st millennium AD, the arable area of Faiyum decreased, leading to the abandonment of settlements around the basin.

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The archaeological wealth of Faiyum Oasis is priceless, with ruins of ancient villages and cities near the site of Crocodilopolis/Arsinoe. The oasis is blessed with incredible archaeological gems, including temples dedicated to local manifestations of gods and their associated divinities, as it was known as the cult of the crocodile god Sobek. The priests of Sobek were key players in economic and social life, buying goods from local producers and organizing religious festivals.

Exploring Faiyum Today

Today, Fayoum Oasis offers a magical combination of lush greenery, stunning lakes, and ancient ruins. Visitors can choose from a range of accommodations, from budget-friendly guesthouses to luxurious resorts. Some of the most recognized hotels include:

Lazib Inn Resort & Spa: A 5-star resort on the shores of Lake Qarun, offering stunning views, a private beach, swimming pools, a spa, and restaurants.
Palm Shadow Resort: A 4-star resort on Lake Qarun, known for its beautiful gardens and traditional Egyptian architecture, with a swimming pool, spa, and restaurant.
Byoum Lakeside Hotel: A budget-friendly 4-star hotel on Lake Qarun, offering comfortable accommodations and excellent service.
Norias Hotel & Resort: A 3-star resort in the heart of Fayoum Oasis, surrounded by lush greenery, with a swimming pool, restaurant, and bar.
Helnan Auberge Hotel: A 3-star hotel close to shops and restaurants.

Within Faiyum is Wadi El Hitan, a UNESCO World Heritage site containing hundreds of Archaeoceti, ancient whale fossils dating back several hundred thousand years. A visit to Faiyum offers a chance to explore this hidden gem with Fayoum day tours & packages.

Thousands of years before dams controlled the crocodiles, Fayoum Oasis was the center of worship for the ancient Egyptian crocodile god, Sobek. The 2,300-square-mile region resembles a broad leaf emerging from the Nile River. Today, it offers a peaceful, green escape from Cairo.

Kept verdant by Lake Qarun, Fayoum feels like a throwback to another era. Water buffalo graze in thriving fields, and residents travel via donkey carts, tuk-tuks, or on horseback. Fayoum surprises with its archaeological sites, contemporary pottery scene, and sweeping desert plains, including Wadi Al-Hitan, a valley filled with ancient whale fossils.

Wadi Al-Hitan or Whale Valley

As Egypt prepares for a surge of new visitors with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, this weekend getaway is ripe for discovery.

Little Known Ancient Marvels

"People who love archaeology come here, but it’s off the beaten track," says Egyptologist Mahmoud Kamel. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Coptic Christians all left their marks in Fayoum, building temples, tombs, and monasteries.

In Pharaonic times, Fayoum was a center for papyrus farming and game hunting. Kings and queens vacationed on Lake Qarun, arriving by boat via canals linked to the Nile River. The conquering Romans established settlements here starting around 27 B.C. until the Muslims came to power in the seventh century A.D. Under the caliphate, the oasis reverted to agrarianism.

Amid the shifting sands at Karanis, Kamel shows a stone doorway topped by a 2,000-year-old dedication from Roman Emperor Nero to Sobek. Inside, there’s an altar flanked by niches that once held mummified crocodiles laid on sleds. In the first century A.D., people left the revered creatures offerings of wine or meat and paraded their mummies through town during festivals.

Aside from portions of the temple, little remains of the mudbrick Karanis village that thrived here from the third century B.C. until the fifth century A.D. In the 1920s, the town’s 5,000-year-old buildings were disassembled and ground into fertilizer by an Italian company.

Other sites around Fayoum are better preserved, like the second century B.C. Medinet Madi ruins in the southwest part of the oasis. “This site is called the Luxor of Fayoum,” Kamel says, evoking the city in Upper Egypt that holds many of ancient Egypt’s most dramatic sites.

In Medinet Madi, a colonnade lined with lion and sphinx statues cuts through the desert to the only remaining temple built by Pharaohs Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (2040 to 1782 B.C.). Though weathered by time and sun, finely carved hieroglyphics cover its doorways and walls, praising Sobek and Renenutet, the snake-headed harvest goddess.

Missing Mummy Paintings

Kamel is acutely aware of what the region has already lost to time, nature, and treasure hunters.

The loss of Fayoum’s famed mummy paintings particularly chafes. These realistic portraits were painted on boards and attached to the faces of upper-class mummies in Roman Egypt, between the first and third centuries A.D.

Some 700 of these strikingly lifelike paintings were uncovered in and around Fayoum beginning in the late 19th century. But nearly all of them were smuggled, sold, or traded outside the country. Today, only two of the portraits remain in Fayoum, both at the dusty two-room Kom Ushim museum in Karanis.

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art has so many of these [portraits],” says Kamel, showing a mummy laid in a glass case. It’s small and wrapped in dressings that have browned and hardened over the years, a dramatic contrast to the finely painted portrait affixed to its face. It depicts a young man with wide-set eyes and curly black hair. Compared to earlier mummy masks, with their lined eyes and blue and gold helmets, these likenesses seem more haunting and vivid.

There may be more of these faces hidden in the sands; a recent dig near Gerza village uncovered not only a jumbo, 2,300-year-old Greco-Roman funerary temple but also several exquisite mummy portraits.

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An Acclaimed Pottery Village

Ancient funeral portraits may have put Fayoum on the international map, but contemporary pottery draws travelers today. At the northwestern corner of the oasis, the sleepy farming village of Tunis was transformed into an artistic hub by Swiss potter Evelyne Porret in the 1980s. She built a home and studio here, eventually opening a pottery school that trained generations of Egyptian artists. Even the town’s architecture began to mimic the domed ceilings and rounded doorways of Porret’s school.

Forty years after Porret’s arrival, her students’ workshops line the main drag, renamed Evelyne Street after her death in 2021. The whimsical glazed pottery style she pioneered features hand-painted dancing goats, soaring birds, and waving palm trees inspired by the nature of the oasis. Visitors can buy pottery directly from workshops or from stores such as To a Skylark Gallery, which also stocks local photography and paintings.

Pottery workshop in Tunis village

Tourists arrive in Fayoum by bus from Cairo or hire guides, like Kamel, to ferry them here and show them around. Besides ancient sites and shopping, they increasingly find restaurants and lodging in Tunis.

Well-heeled Cairenes and expats frequent the Lazib Inn, a terraced boutique hotel near the waterfront. At dinnertime, traditional dishes like stuffed pigeon are served by candlelight as a musician plays the mournful-sounding oud, a bulbous Middle Eastern guitar.

Kamel sees low-impact, sustainable travel as Fayoum’s future; a way to bring more visitors to discover the region’s riches without transforming it into a stop on the big-bus tour circuit that bombards archaeologically rich Upper Egypt. “Fayoum,” he says, “is fragile.” And though his tour is peppered with stories of loss and destruction, fresh archaeological finds and the ceramic scene in Tunis suggest the area may be poised for another rebirth.

Siwa Oasis: A Berber Stronghold

Siwa Oasis, located in Maṭrūḥ muḥāfaẓah (governorate), western Egypt, lies near the Libyan frontier, 350 miles (560 km) west-southwest of Cairo. The oasis is 6 miles (10 km) long by 4-5 miles (6-8 km) wide and has about 200 springs. Two rock outcrops provide the sites of the old walled settlements of Siwa and Aghūrmī, which are veritable fortresses.

The oasis is inhabited by Berber-speaking Sudanic peoples who live in mud-brick houses at the foot of their former strongholds. Ten miles (16 km) northeast is the small oasis of Al-Zaytūn (Zeitun), and westward a chain of little oases and small salty pools extends for about 50 miles (80 km). Siwa Oasis is extremely fertile and supports thousands of date palms and olive trees.

The export of dates and olive oil provide the chief source of income, supplemented by basketry. Siwa’s ancient Egyptian name was Sekht-am, meaning “palm land.” The oasis was the seat of the oracle temple of Amon (Zeus Ammon), which was already famous in the time of Herodotus and was consulted by Alexander the Great.

The fragmentary remains of the temple, with inscriptions dating from the 4th century bce, lie in the ruins of Aghūrmī. The oracle fell into disrepute during the Roman occupation of Egypt. Nearby is the ruined temple of Umm Beda (Um Ebeida), and there are also many Roman remains in the vicinity. The first European to reach Siwa after Roman times was the British traveler William George Browne in 1792.

Siwa Oasis

Bahariya Oasis: Valley of the Golden Mummies

Bahariya Oasis (Arabic: الواحات البحرية, romanized: El-Wāḥāt El-Baḥrīya, "the Northern Oases") is a depression and a naturally rich oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, approximately 370 km away from Cairo. The valley is surrounded by mountains and has numerous springs. Located in Giza Governorate, the main economic sectors are agriculture, iron ore mining, and tourism.

In Ancient Egypt, the oasis had two names. The name 'ḏsḏs' (Djesdjes) is first mentioned on a scarab dating back to the Middle Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, this name is rarely found, although it does appear for example in the Temple of Luxor and in the account of King Kamose, who occupied the oasis during the war against the Hyksos. From the 25th Dynasty it was almost the only name used. From 45 CE, the depression was known in Latin as Oasis parva (Small Oasis). The modern name is الواحات البحرية, al-Wāḥāt al-Baḥriyya meaning "the Northern Oases".

Bahariya consists of many villages, of which El Bawiti is the largest and the administrative center. Qasr is el-Bawiti's neighboring/twin village. To the east, about ten kilometers away are the villages of Mandishah and el-Zabu. A smaller village called el-'Aguz lies between El Bawiti and Mandishah. Harrah, the easternmost village, is a few kilometers east of Mandishah and el-Zabu. El Heiz, also called El-Hayez, is the southernmost village, but it may not always be considered as part of Bahariya because it is so far from the rest of the villages, about fifty kilometers south of El Bawiti.

The depression has been populated since the Neolithic, although archaeological evidence is not continuous. In El Heiz, a prehistoric settlement site of hunter-gatherers was found with remains of grindstones, arrowheads, scrapers, chisels, and ostrich eggshells. In Qārat el-Abyaḍ, a Czech team led by Miroslav Bárta discovered a settlement of the Old Kingdom. Rock inscriptions in el-Harrah and other records date to the Middle Kingdom and upwards. The tomb of Amenhotep called Huy was erected in Qarat Hilwah at the end of the 18th dynasty. In the 26th dynasty, the depression was culturally and economically flourishing.

The Greco-Roman period was a time of prosperity. There is the ruin of a temple dedicated to Ammon by Alexander the Great located in Qasr el-Miqisba ('Ain et-Tibniya). It is believed by some Egyptologists that Alexander passed through Bahariya while returning from the oracle of Ammon at Siwa Oasis. Excavations of the Greco-Roman necropolis found in 1995 and known as the Valley of the Golden Mummies began in 1999.

Bahariya Formation

In the spring of 2010, a Roman-era mummy was unearthed in a Bahariya Oasis cemetery in el-Harrah. The female mummy was 3 feet tall and covered with plaster decorated to resemble Roman dress and jewellery. In addition to the female mummy, archaeologists found clay and glass vessels, coins, anthropoid masks and fourteen Greco-Roman tombs. Director of Cairo and Giza Antiquities Mahmoud Affifi, the archaeologist who led the dig, said the tomb has a unique design with stairways and corridors, and could date to 300 BC.

In 2019, archaeologists discovered 19 structures and a church carved into the bedrock from the fifth century CE. During World War I, the Baharia Military Railway was built to provide access to the oasis. In the early 1970s, an asphalt road connecting Bahariya to Cairo was finished. With the new road came electricity, cars, television, phone lines, a more accessible route to Cairo, and, more recently, internet. The spread of people and ideas between Bahariya and Cairo has increased dramatically since the road was constructed.

The majority of Waḥātī people in Bahariya are Muslims. There are some mosques in Bahariya. Traditional music is very important to the Waḥātī people. Flutes, drums, and the simsimeyya (a harp-like instrument) are played at social gatherings, particularly at weddings. Traditional songs sung in rural style are passed down from generation to generation, and new songs are invented as well.

Bahariya used to be a major center for Coptic Christians. However, most of the Oasis population converted to Islam centuries ago. The traditional dress of women in Bahariya is called Magaddil (braids) after the striped pattern of the embroidery. There was also a dress that was lightly embroidered, with a border of telli embroidery around the neck that was made separately and sewn onto the dress.

Agriculture is still an important source of income, though now the iron ore industry close to Bahariya provides jobs for many Wahati people. Recently there has also been an increase in tourism to the oasis because of antiquities (tombs, mummies and other artifacts have been discovered there), and because of the beautiful surrounding deserts. Wahati and foreign guides lead adventure desert tours based out of Bahariya to the surrounding White and Black deserts, and sometimes to Siwa or the southern oases.

Tameryraptor and Bahariasaurus (meaning "Bahariya lizard") as well as the holotype specimen of the famous Spinosaurus are dinosaurs which have been found in the Bahariya Formation, which date to about 95 million years ago. Bahariasaurus was a huge theropod and was described by Ernst Stromer in 1934, however the type specimen was destroyed during World War II in 1944.