Al Quseir, before a trade port and base for exploration…

Al Quseir is 85km south of Safaga, and has been used as both a trade port and base for exploration by many different civilizations for over four thousand years. One of Egypt’s earliest places of importance, the city stands at the end of the shortest route between the Nile and the Red Sea, which made it a vital link
between Egypt and the wider world in the days before the Suez Canal.



Visitors seeking ancient history and a taste of eras gone by will have much to see and explore here. The remains of the Roman port settlement, Myos Hormos, are only 8 km from present-day Al Quseir. There, visitors can still see the ancient portbuildings, and scattered around the area are many Roman vases and artifacts, making this a rare historical location where tourists and locals alike have respected the significance of the site, leaving it preserved for new visitors to find as though they were the first. It is possible to travel even further back into time here, though, with as many as 200 hieroglyphic tablets adorning the cliffs at Wadi Hammamat, which joins Al Quseir to Qift on the River Nile. Many of these tablets are 4,000 years old, and depict traditional reed boats travelling to the Nile. In later years, the Romans built watchtowers
along this wadi, and many of them are still there today.