The Oracle of Amun at Siwa

The desert oracle Alexander the Great crossed the sand to consult

Out in Egypt’s Western Desert, 50 kilometres from the Libyan border, the oasis of Siwa was known across the ancient world for its oracle of Amun, whom the Greeks called Zeus Ammon. Greek settlers from Cyrene reached it by the 7th century BC, and Herodotus heard of a spring here that ran coldest in the heat of noon. Alexander the Great crossed the desert to consult it, supposedly by following birds, and his court historians said the oracle confirmed him as divine and the rightful pharaoh; why he really made the journey is still argued over. Under Roman rule its answers fell into disrepute. The broken remains of the oracle temple, with inscriptions from the 4th century BC, stand within the ruins of Aghurmi. In 1995 a Greek archaeologist announced she had found Alexander’s tomb in the oasis, and in March 2014 people gathered for the first public viewing of the equinox sun rising over the oracle’s mound, seen from a temple 12 kilometres away across the lake.