Photo : Einsamer Schütze — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Fayoum · Qasr Qarun
Qasr Qarun
A Ptolemaic temple still standing at the far end of Lake Qarun: rooms, stairs, roof, cellars.
The temple stands at the western tip of Lake Qarun, just outside the village that carries its name, on the ruins of Dionysias, the town where the caravan track to Bahariya began. It is built of yellow limestone, dates from the Ptolemaic period, and was dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god of the Fayoum. What strikes you is the state of it: the walls hold, the roofing is in place, and you move from room to room, climb the stairs to the roof terrace, and go down into cellars. Around it the sand has covered the ancient town, and the brickwork of a Roman camp still shows above ground a little further off.
The extra bit
Go up onto the roof terrace: from there the plan of the building falls into place, with the lake on one side and the sand over Dionysias on the other. The staircase is narrow, dark and has no handrail — take a torch, and leave the flip-flops behind.
Know before you go
The temple is behind a gate and has a guardian: ticket at the window, in cash, and it is the guardian who unlocks the lower parts. There is no lighting inside and the thresholds are high; the roof terrace has no parapet, so hold children by the hand. The Roman camp next door is not necessarily covered by the ticket: ask at the window before walking over to it. Around the winter solstice an alignment of the sun on the sanctuary is announced here and the site draws a crowd that day; ask the temple ticket window, or your hotel on the Lake Qarun shore, for the date settled on and the opening time that morning before you make the drive.
