Middle Egypt (Amarna, Beni Hasan)

Middle Egypt is the stretch of the Nile Valley between Cairo and Luxor, around the cities of Minya and Asyut. It holds a chapter of Egyptian history that stands apart: Tell el-Amarna, the capital Akhenaten raised from the desert for his single god, the Aten, and abandoned some fifteen years later. Around it lie the painted tombs of the governors at Beni Hasan, Thoth's holy city of Hermopolis and its necropolis, Tuna el-Gebel.

The region suits travellers who already know Cairo and Luxor, or whose interest in Egyptology goes beyond the great classics. Two days on site cover the essentials, with two nights in Minya: Beni Hasan on the afternoon you arrive, then a full day for Amarna, Hermopolis and Tuna el-Gebel.

Getting to Middle Egypt

Cairo is a few hours' flight from Europe's main cities, direct or with one stop. From there, Minya is about 4 hours by car with a driver. Tell el-Amarna lies 310 km from Cairo, 60 km south of Minya and 75 km north of Asyut; from Cairo, take the Eastern Desert highway and the Mallawi exit. Luxor is 400 km further south.

The Amarna site spreads along the east bank of the Nile. You reach it over the bridge between Mallawi and Deir Mawas, or by the ferry from the west bank to the village of El-Till. Keep your car for the whole day: the North Tombs, the Royal Tomb and the remains of the city are several kilometres apart.

A few long cruises of about two weeks between Cairo and Luxor or Aswan call at Minya, Beni Hasan, Tuna el-Gebel and Amarna, on small ships. The guide Choosing a Nile cruise compares the more common options between Luxor and Aswan.

Amarna, Akhenaten's city

Around 1347 BC, Pharaoh Akhenaten founded a new city, Akhetaten, the "Horizon of the Aten", in a wide desert bay on the east bank of the Nile. There he made the Aten, the sun disc, the god of the state, to the exclusion of all other deities. The city was built and abandoned within about fifteen years, around 1332 BC, at the end of the 18th Dynasty. Today it is under growing pressure from the spread of the surrounding fields and villages.

Sixteen stelae cut into the cliffs on both banks marked the bounds of the city's sacred land. In the first proclamation, dated to year 5 of his reign, Akhenaten says that the Aten chose the place for him, and vows never to extend its limits. Excavation began in 1892. On 6 December 1912, the German expedition led by Ludwig Borchardt found the bust of Queen Nefertiti in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose; it is now in the Neues Museum in Berlin. The Egypt Exploration Society, a British learned society, has carried out excavation and conservation at the site since 1977.

The Amarna Project, which leads this work, suggests the following for a one-day visit, arriving early:

• The North Tombs, six numbered rock-cut tombs of Akhenaten's high officials, closed by iron doors, in a cliff about 85 m high. Most visitors see tombs 3 to 6, including that of Meryra, high priest of the Aten, where the royal princesses parade in chariots. A stepped path with benches leads up to them.
• The Royal Tomb, no. 26, cut into a side valley of the Royal Wadi about 6 km from its mouth. It was prepared for Akhenaten and his daughter, Princess Meketaten. The decoration, largely cut into a thin layer of gypsum plaster, has almost entirely gone; Meketaten's chambers still show Akhenaten and Nefertiti worshipping the Aten. You go down by a staircase and a ramp, both with handrails.
• Boundary Stela U, 7.6 m high, with statues of the royal family at its base, north of the entrance to the Royal Wadi, at the top of a flight of steps.
• The North Palace and the Small Aten Temple, on the way back to El-Till.

A second day adds the South Tombs, nineteen numbered tombs from 7 to 25, among them those of Ay, who became king after Tutankhamun, and of Mahu, Akhetaten's chief of police, and then the site of Kom el-Nana.

On the riverbank at El-Till, the visitor centre of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities introduces the city with models, panels in Arabic and English and a full-size replica of an official's house that you can walk through. The site and the centre open from 8 am to 4 pm local time. Entry costs 200 Egyptian pounds (EGP) for a foreign adult, plus EGP 120 for the Royal Tomb. Tickets are sold at the office on the road to the North Tombs; the rest house opposite sells drinks and has toilets.

The site is unpaved desert, with little shade and few places to sit, and the North Tombs and Stela U can only be reached up high staircases. Bring water, a hat and sturdy shoes, and ask your hotel for a packed lunch.

Beni Hasan, a province's life in paint

About twenty kilometres south of Minya, on the east bank, Beni Hasan is the cemetery of the governors of the Oryx province, the sixteenth of Upper Egypt, under the 11th and 12th Dynasties, roughly 2055 to 1795 BC. In the cliff face, 39 tombs were cut horizontally into the rock with bronze-bladed chisels and wooden mallets. Twelve still have their paintings: ploughing and harvest, craftsmen's workshops, hunting, games, war and foreigners arriving in Egypt. Below, the lower cemetery holds around 800 officials' tombs.

Four of the upper tombs are open:

• Amenemhat (tomb 2);
• Khnumhotep II (tomb 3), where a procession of fifteen foreigners from Asia, the Aamu, led by a chief named Abisharie, brings gifts to the governor; the inscription counts thirty-seven;
• Baqet III (tomb 15), where a whole wall shows 220 pairs of wrestlers, painted in red and dark brown so that every hold can be read;
• Khety (tomb 17), with another 122 pairs of wrestlers.

A little further south, in a side valley, Queen Hatshepsut had the Speos Artemidos cut into the rock, a temple to Pakhet, a local lioness goddess. Beni Hasan is open daily from 8 am to 5 pm local time; entry costs EGP 200 for a foreign adult and EGP 100 for a student.

Hermopolis and Tuna el-Gebel, the realm of Thoth

On the west bank, near the village of el-Ashmunein, Hermopolis was the holy city of Thoth, god of wisdom and patron of scribes. Its Egyptian name, Khemenu, means "Eight-Town", after the eight primordial deities worshipped there. The city is now in ruins, its stones long carted off as building material. What remains is a small open-air museum with two colossal statues of Thoth as a baboon worshipping the sun, and the columns of a 55 m long 5th-century Coptic basilica.

A few kilometres west, on the edge of the desert, Tuna el-Gebel was the necropolis of Hermopolis, in use from the New Kingdom to the Roman period. Here you can see:

• The Tomb of Petosiris, a priest of Thoth, from around 300 BC, modelled on a temple, with a pronaos, the vestibule of Egyptian temples, its reliefs painted in red, yellow, blue, green and black;
• The animal galleries, underground passages where mummified ibises and baboons, the animals of Thoth, were laid to rest;
• The Tomb of Isadora, a young woman of Hermopolis who drowned in the Nile under the emperor Antoninus Pius in the 2nd century AD, whose mummy is still on display;
• Akhenaten's Boundary Stela A, well preserved, with its statues, on the way to the site.

Tuna el-Gebel is open from 8 am to 5 pm local time; entry costs EGP 200 for a foreign adult.

In Mallawi, between Hermopolis and Amarna, the town museum, opened in 1963, displays finds from the region's excavations, mostly Graeco-Roman: statues of Osiris, Isis, Hathor and Thoth, jewellery, papyri and wooden coffins. Looted in August 2013, it reopened in September 2016 with most of its 1,000 or so objects recovered. It opens from 9 am to 3 pm local time; entry costs EGP 120.

On the Holy Family route

Coptic tradition places two stops of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt in Middle Egypt. At Gebel el-Teir, north of Minya, a monastery looks down on the Nile from the top of the east-bank cliff; the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has begun developing the pilgrimage path there. Further south, in Asyut Governorate, the monastery of al-Muharraq marks the next stop. Both fit into a trip to Middle Egypt for travellers following the route.

Safety and getting around

The "Travel advice" table on this page gives your own foreign ministry's advice for the Nile Valley in Minya and Asyut and for the desert that stretches west of it, and the guide Safety in Egypt, region by region sets it in the context of the whole country.

In 2017 and 2018, two attacks targeted buses of Coptic pilgrims on the road to the Monastery of Saint Samuel, near Minya. The tourist police keep a close watch on foreign visitors in the province: an officer may follow your car from site to site, or wait outside your hotel. Visits are made by day, with a driver and an Egyptologist guide; driving at night outside towns is to be avoided, so plan to be back in Minya before dark.

When to go

The Minya weather station records average highs of 20 to 26 °C from November to March, according to the 1991-2020 normals of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization). Winter mornings are cool, with an average low of 5.5 °C in January, so bring a jacket for the early start. From May to September, highs climb above 34 °C, up to 37 °C in July, and the shadeless sites become hard going. It almost never rains, 3 mm a year on average.

November to March are the most pleasant months; in April and October, start your visits as soon as the sites open.

Planning your stay

There is no hotel at Amarna itself. Most visitors stay in Minya, the provincial capital, about 1 hour 30 minutes north of Amarna, in one of the hotels along the Nile; Mallawi, 20 minutes away, also has small hotels, and Asyut is also about 1 hour 30 minutes to the south. A plan for two days on site, with two nights in Minya:

• Day 1: drive from Cairo, Beni Hasan in the afternoon, night in Minya.
• Day 2: Amarna at opening time, Hermopolis and Tuna el-Gebel in the afternoon, second night in Minya.
• Day 3: back to Cairo, or south towards Abydos and Dendera and Luxor.

Amarna and Beni Hasan can also be done as a day trip from Cairo, with about 8 hours on the road there and back. One local agency offers it at 259 USD (about 232 €) per person for two, by private car with an English-speaking guide, entry fees and lunch included, for about 16 hours. Sabaro recommends staying in Minya instead: the days are shorter, and you reach Amarna at opening time, before the heat.

Site prices and passes are set out in the guide Egypt site tickets.