In the Siwa Oasis

After the photography workshop in Cairo, we squeezed into a small bus and drove 800 kilometers through the fringes of the Eastern Sahara to the Siwa Oasis.

The history of the oasis dates back to the 18th Dynasty (1500 BC). The main temple, dedicated to the god Amun and the pronouncements of the Oracle of Siwa, were well-known far beyond the borders of the Pharaohs’ realm. The most famous visitor to the oracle was undoubtedly Alexander the Great, who leveraged the power and influence of the oracle and was hailed in Siwa as the “Son of Zeus”.

In antiquity, Siwa was known as Ammonion, a place of oracle for the Bedouins. By the end of the 18th century, the location of the so-called Ammon Oasis, where Alexander the Great consulted the oracle, was barely known in Europe.