Gebel el-Silsila

Why go

Where the Nile narrows between sandstone cliffs, more than a hundred quarries supplied blocks for many of Egypt’s great temples from the Middle Kingdom onward; tool marks and quarrymen’s inscriptions remain. On the west bank, Horemheb’s rock-cut Speos holds seated statues of seven deities. To its south a row of New Kingdom officials’ chapels, porch-like shrines of Sety I, Ramesses II and Merenptah, and Nile stelae honouring Hapy line the riverside cliff. Sobek, the crocodile god, was the local deity. A New Kingdom cemetery was excavated on the east bank.