Serabit el-Khadim Temple of Hathor

Trail description

Serabit el-Khadim is a site in the southwest Sinai where the ancient Egyptians mined turquoise and copper, about 43 km east of Abu Zenima. This walk climbs from the road on a track and then a path up to the plateau and the long-lived Temple of Hathor, the goddess known here as the mistress of turquoise. The temple was founded under Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and enlarged in the New Kingdom, and commemorative stelae left by mining expeditions line the approach. The site is also where the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, among the earliest alphabetic writing, were found in 1904.

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