Frédéric M

Canada - 18-May-25 -

During my trip to Egypt in February and March 2025, I spent three nights at the Zad El Mosafer guesthouse in Tunis in the Fayoum and Lake Qarun region. I used Tunis as a base to visit Wadi Al-Hitan, Gebel Qatrani, and Soknopaiou Nesos. I organized all these activities through my guesthouse. What's more, they also arranged transport to Alexandria, with stops at the monasteries of Saint Pishoy and Saint Macarius the Great and Abu Mena.

On my second day in this region, the excursion organized via my guesthouse took us to the north shore of the lake. I had requested an excursion to Soknopaiou Nesos, the petrified forest, and the quarries of Gebel Qatrani. I was again with the driver who had accompanied me the day before to Wadi Al-Hitan, but this time we were sharing the vehicle with a second guide and a Russian tourist who was also able to act as interpreter, as she spoke both Arabic and English. As was the case on several occasions during my trip to Egypt, the excursion organized and negotiated with my guesthouse did not go according to plan.

We began with a visit to the ruins of Soknopaiou Nesos. A guard showed us the site and asked for a tip as we finished the tour. The site is large, but contains few particularly interesting remains. All that remains are the ruins of brick buildings. Some walls, however, are incredibly high. The guard showed us a bas-relief depicting a figure. Only the body was now visible, the stone having been cut off at the neck. The brick piles observed by Wojciech Fedoruk have now been used to reinforce the base of certain walls around the village.

I wouldn't be outraged to see this site inscribed on the World Heritage list, but my visit didn't convince me of the OUV of the site. There could be a lot of room for improvement in terms of on-site interpretation. I think these ruins are very seldom visited, as even our driver was taking photos and discovering the site with interest as if he were here for the first time (which would explain why a second guide was needed today). However, a group of tourists were arriving at the site as we were leaving. After the tour, we stopped off at the Qasr Sagha temple before continuing on to Gebel Qatrani.

Wojciech Fedoruk

Poland - 26-Feb-23 -

Of the five components of this proposal, I saw only two – Karanis and Soknopaiu Nesos. From the research I did, it seems that Qasr Qarun is still worth visiting, but there is not much left to see in Theadelphia.

Karanis is once quite a large village settled in the times of the Ptolemaic and inhabited in Roman times, overlooking the oasis of Fayoum. It is located on the road from Cairo to Wadi Al-Hitan, so at least a few travelers may have passed by unknowingly. To this day, mainly the ruins of two temples have remained here, the residential buildings are completely ruined. The place is unattended – although there is a center for visitors, you can see that it has not been renovated since its inception, that is for some 30 years. Our local guide showed us an ancient public bath where rubbish was piled up. Next to it is a rather weak museum (but with a wonderfully preserved mummy with a coffin portrait in the Greek style).

Then it was a little better – we went to the Lake Qarum National Park, in its northern part. We paid $ 5 per person for admission and went to the ancient village of Soknopaiu Nesos or in Arabic Dimah Al-Siba (see photo). The village was settled in the times of the Ptolemaic, in the 3rd century BC and its name comes from the god Soknopaios (as you can guess, the name is Greek rather than Egyptian). Soknopaios is the Greek version of Sobek, the crocodile god. The village is beautifully situated near Lake Qarum, which can be reached by an ancient, well-preserved road. Its high walls can be seen from afar in the desert. There is quite a lot left inside, and soon there will be even more – piles of freshly produced bricks are piled up around to reconstruct the village. Soknopaiu Nesos should be easily combined with Gebel Quatrani, a proposal for 2024, as it lays within the Lake Qarum National Park and may be probably one of the inscribed components.