The quarry faces
Whole temple-loads of stone missing from the mountain, the tool marks crisp as yesterday.
Port of call V
Gebel el-Silsila
Where the great temples were cut from the cliff.
Day 3 · MorningOn the four-night journey
135 kmFrom Luxor
1 hour ashoreTime ashore
MorningWhen we visit
Sandstone quarries · Speos of Horemheb · Rock shrines of the Nile
The river narrows between walls of golden sandstone — the very quarries that built Karnak and Luxor. Chisel marks still ladder the cliffs, and small shrines watch the water where the current runs fastest.
What you'll see
Worth the mooring.
The Speos of Horemheb
A rock-cut chapel at the water's edge, carved for the Nile itself.
The narrows
The Nile at its tightest and deepest — sailors' shrines line the passage.
The quarry that built the temples.
Gebel el-Silsila is the narrowest point of the Nile in Egypt, where sandstone cliffs close in on both banks and the river runs fast between them. It is also where most of the sandstone in Upper Egypt came from. Karnak, Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo — the stone was cut here and floated downstream, and the quarry faces still carry the marks of how it was done: the channels cut around each block, the wedge slots, blocks abandoned half-free of the rock.
Because the place supplied the temples, it was itself sacred. Rock-cut shrines line the west bank — small chapels cut by kings and officials, with stelae recording quarrying expeditions and offerings to Sobek and to Hapy, the god of the inundation. The Speos of Horemheb is the largest, a rock-cut chapel with carved pillars and reliefs of the king's Nubian campaign.
There is no town here and never was — only the cliffs, the shrines and the water. It is the quietest stop on the river and, for many guests, the one they remember, because the scale of what was taken out of these cliffs only lands when you are standing in the hole it left.
Larger cruise ships do not stop. There is no quay and nowhere to put two hundred people. A dahabiya can moor against the bank and put you ashore directly, which is the only practical way to see it.
In pictures
Gebel el-Silsila, as we find it.
Before you go ashore at Gebel el-Silsila.
- How long ashore
- An hour to an hour and a half, depending on the light and how far along the quarry face you want to walk.
- The walking
- Uneven rock and sand, with some low steps. Flat shoes rather than sandals.
- Shade
- Only inside the shrines. The quarry face is fully exposed.
- Photography
- Excellent at either end of the day, when the low sun picks out the tool marks on the rock.
- When we go
- Morning on the southbound journey, which is when the west bank is lit.
- Why it is quiet
- No quay, so the large boats cannot land. On most mornings the site is ours.
How the Nile Spirit visits
Only small boats moor here. We tie up beneath the cliffs, walk the quarry paths in the morning cool, and swim off the sandbank after.