Roberts' Rock: A Nabataean sentry post carved into a bluff over the desolate Wadi Araba, a day’s march west of Petra. Today, a tarmac strip brings you within a few minutes’ walk of the site, named for the Scottish painter David Roberts, who stopped off here for a sketch in the late 1830s.
Asyut, Middle Egypt – Shaping the finials for domes and minarets in a nook of Asyut’s old souq – al-Qaysariyya, once the final station of the infamous Darb Al Arbaeen. This coppersmith has been hammering here for half a century and believes he’s probably the last of his kind.
Getting to explore old Asyut was high among the highlights of researching for the latest @lonelyplanet Egypt, author copies of which just arrived in my mailbox today. I covered the Northern Nile Valley and the Suez zone for both the main series and the all-new Experience Egypt book. In both, quite a few of my own photos feature too – a happy first for me!
Inscription hunting in Wadi Rum | There are tens of thousands of ancient etchings here, from petroglyphs of camels, oryx and lions to Kufic lines heralding the arrival of Islam. Of those written, most are in Thamudic script (which runs in any direction), though its various offshoots – Aramaic, Nabatean and Arabic – are also found in clusters, message boards at the base of Rum’s cliffs.
After plenty of visits to Rum over the years, it wasn’t until this latest that I met the mysterious Abu al-Hol, etched partway up a cliff at the far, southern end of Jordan’s Hisma, by the Saudi border. Its crude, stylized eyes and nose resembled those on display in Petra’s museum: Nabatean gods.
From my old friend Ali, I was pleased to learn that it wasn't the only Abu al-Hol in these parts. I eventually found four, spread widely.
Next to nothing is known about this creepy, humanoid image, which shares its Arabic name with Egypt’s Sphinx. Whether meant by its creators as gods or mortals, these ‘fathers of terror’ are guessed to be 2,000–4,000 years old. As well as Petra’s rare statues, its peculiar shape brings to mind the strange niches in the molten-wax walls around Rum, and the equally obscure white blocks found here and there strewn in haphazard piles, perhaps marking the sites of ancient temples, these days burrowed with huge, random holes: local Bedouin, hunting for treasure of their own.
One of the most amazing places I’ve visited so far is the Siwa Oasis in Egypt 🌴✨
I’m very happy to have this feature published in the new Winter issue of @afarmedia !
Thank you @maheimerman for your support ❣️
and @anthonjackson_ for the beautiful writing ✍️
A big thank you to #MarcelSeyppel for guiding me through Siwa, showing me this incredible place, and traveling alongside me 🤍
#SiwaOasis #EgyptTravel #AfarMagazine #photograhy
Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Reggio Calabria | Among the only bits of Reggio’s cathedral that survived its terrible earthquakes (1783 and 1908) is this 17th-century chapel, smothered in polychrome marble inlays. #calabriastraordinaria
Santa Severina, Calabria | Ringed with eight scavenged Roman columns, Santa Severina's 9th-century Byzantine baptistery still hosts local sacraments to this day, making it the oldest site of continual worship in Calabria. #calabriastraordinaria
From a pass through Bovesia (Area Grecanica) in Calabria’s Aspromonte, at the very bottom of Italy's toe. It's one of the last two footholds of Italy’s ‘Greko’-speaking Grecanici population (the other is in Puglia), still clutching to Byzantine/Hellenic ties with linguistic echoes of Magna Graecia.
Orsomarso, one of the prettiest villages I passed in Calabria’s Pollino on assignment for @RoughGuides . On the climb to this viewpoint, from the roof of a clifftop tower over a thousand years old, you pass faint traces of Byzantine frescoes left by Greek Basilian monks. More from Calabria soon.
