EL QUSEIR HISTORY TIMELINE SINCE 1479 BC

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Pharaonic El Quseir

• 1479 BCE: Local historian Kamal El Din Hussein notes that El Quseir, once known as Tao or Tjau, served as the primary port for importing vital commodities, including gold, during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE). This crucial maritime link is immortalized in desert rock carvings and temple depictions.
• It’s probable that, similar to the later Graeco-Roman period, goods and travelers followed the shortest route from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea. This journey began at Qift (Coptos) and traversed the Eastern Desert to El Quseir, winding through a series of relatively flat wadis, with Wadi Hammamat being the most well known. The 175-kilometre (109-mile) trek would have taken about a week.

• 1471 BCE: A number of Egyptian temple murals, including those at the famous mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Luxor, depict an expedition, consisting of a fleet of at least five ships crewed by 200 sailors, which, likely departing from El Quseir, sailed to the mysterious land of Punt. This distant fabled place is believed to have been located in what is now the Horn of Africa, possibly in modern-day Eritrea or Somalia. The epic journey is thought to have taken place during the eighth year of Queen Hatshepsut’s reign in 1471 BCE. However, please note that some alternative estimates of her reign dates have placed this event at around 1493 BCE.
• The expedition, which may well have included a large military component, returned with gold, elephant tusks, ivory, leopard and panther skins, ebony, black eye paint, incense, myrrh resin, frankincense, fragrant woods, cinnamon and even live apes and baboons. However, arguably the most sought after product was the myrrh resin. According to the Hatshepsut temple inscriptions, ‘heaps of myrrh resin from myrrh trees’ were brought back, as were living myrrh trees for replanting at Karnak in Luxor.[1] Possibly the first tree replanting scheme ever to have been recorded.
• 600 BCE: It was probably from El Quseir that pharaoh Necho II (610-595 BCE) instructed Phoenician sailors to set sail on a three year expedition, that according to the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus, claimed to have circumnavigated Africa clockwise, eventually passing through the Pillars of Herakles (the straits of Gibraltar) until ‘they arrived in Egypt. According to Herodotus, who was obviously sceptical, ‘There they said what some may believe, though I do not, that in sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right hand.'[2]

Graeco Roman El Quseir

• 116 BCE – Long before Roman power reached the Red Sea coast, perhaps as early as 116 BCE, the Greek geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus recorded the existence of a new port, located some 8 kilometres north of today’s old town of El Quseir and just northwest of where the Movenpick Hotel now stands. He identified it as Myos Hormos, a name whose meaning remains intriguingly ambiguous. It may be translated as “Mouse Harbour,” possibly reflecting the swarms of mice or rats attracted by the grain and other foodstuffs stored on ships or along the quays. Alternatively, it could mean “Mussel Harbour,” a reference to the rich mussel beds that once thrived in the surrounding waters.
• Over the centuries since, the lagoon where ships once anchored has gradually silted up with debris and sand, a result of frequent flash floods that have altered the landscape.
• 0 CE to 100 CE – Despite the Roman Empire tightening its grip on Egypt, the original Greek name of Myos Hormos continued to be used. There is however some confusion as it was generally believed, until the late twentieth century, that the town was known by the Romans as Leukos Limen, meaning “White Harbour.” This has been largely overturned by modern expert research. Breakthroughs in the 1990s—most notably the discovery of hundreds of administrative pottery shards—have definitively confirmed that Myos Hormos was the consistent and primary name for this site throughout both the Greek and Roman periods. The theory that the site was renamed as Leukos Limen in the Roman era is now viewed as a modern misidentification that occurred before more definitive inscribed evidence was unearthed.
• 17-23 CE: In his Geographia, the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, writing around 17 to 23 CE, described a fleet of roughly 120 ships that sailed from the port. This fleet carried exports such as pottery, slaves (mainly from Europe), including “singing boys,” wine, and precious minerals to India and East Africa. In return, they brought back valuable imports like stone, silk, and spices for the Roman Empire.

Medieval El Quseir Timeline

• 622-900: According to medieval archaeologist Katherine S. Burke, “no traces of an early Islamic town at Quseir al-Qadim have been detected” so far.(1)

• Approx 969 to 1250: According to research by the Universities of Chicago and Southampton, Quseir al-Qadim was gradually reoccupied during Egypt’s Fatimid (969–1171) and especially the Ayyubid (1171–1250) dynasties, following a period of relative abandonment that lasted over four centuries. Katherine Burke, in her study The Sheikh’s House at Quseir Al-Qadim, suggests that this revival was partly driven by the growing trade between Egypt, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, for which the port of Quseir al-Qadim was perfectly positioned. Burke and other historians point to six key factors that likely shaped this resurgence:
• 1) Due to urbanization and an increasing number of hajj pilgrims, there was an ever growing demand in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the surrounding regions for grain imported from Egypt’s Nile Valley. Quseir al-Qadim, being the most strategically positioned Red Sea port, was ideally placed to meet this demand, especially as the Fatimid and Ayyubid periods ensured relative political stability in Egypt.
• 2) The influx of European pilgrims, crusader settlers, and merchants to Middle Eastern Mediterranean ports like Acre and Antioch from the 1090s onward sparked a new interest and demand in Europe for Asian and African goods, including staple products, luxuries and spices.
• 3) The expansion of Chinese maritime trade during the 12th and 13th centuries created a growing demand for foreign goods, including those from the Middle East and Europe.
• 4) In response, Egyptian merchants shifted their focus toward trade with East Africa and India, and indirectly with China, capitalizing on the increasing demand for goods in these regions.
• 5) The Fatimid and Ayyubid dynasties introduced policies that excluded European traders from accessing the Red Sea, which, in turn, boosted the profitability of Egyptian merchants.

• 6) Meanwhile, the Mongol attacks on overland trade caravans during the early to mid-13th century, with particularly disruptive campaigns between 1215 and 1250, pushed the Chinese to rely more heavily on seaborne trade through the Indian Ocean, further opening up lucrative opportunities for Egyptian traders using Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes.
• Approx 1025 to 1030: The Fatimid historian Al-Mussabihi references Quseir al-Qadim in his monumental History of Egypt (Akhbār Miṣr), a work spanning 13,000 pages. Thankfully, one of the surviving fragments of this text includes this valuable mention.
• 1228: The Muslim scholar Yakut al-Hamawy, in his Dictionary of Countries (Kitāb Mu’jam al-Buldān), mentions Quseir al-Qadim, noting that the port was regularly patronized by Yemeni merchant ships.
• 1265: Records of an expedition against Red Sea pirates reveal an ingenious way by which the Egyptians were able to use Quseir Al Qadim despite the lack of suitable vessels: ships were crafted at Qus (in the Nile Valley), disassembled, and then transported to the port where they were meticulously reassembled. This wasn’t the first time this had been done, but an ancient technique dating back to the time of the Pharaohs.[2]
• 1293: A court document from the Rasulid dynasty of Yemen refers to Quseir al-Qadim as an alternative port to Aydab, which was located near the modern day Egyptian-Sudanese frontier.[3]

• 1300s/1400s: The Mamluks, who ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1571, strived to establish a safer route for Hajj pilgrims. The most direct path from the Nile Valley to Mecca passed through the town of Qift, heading east across the Eastern Desert through a series of mountain valleys, then connecting to the port at Quseir al-Qadim. From there, pilgrims would cross the Red Sea to Jeddah, the main port of arrival for those journeying to Mecca. As a result of these efforts to improve security, Quseir al-Qadim likely saw a significant increase in the number of pilgrims traveling through the port.

• 1348/1349: The plague made its way to Egypt aboard rat-infested ships in late 1348 or early 1349. For years, historians believed it arrived on grain vessels through Alexandria, but there’s also the possibility that it came on ships from Asia, docking at Quseir al-Qadim and then spread via caravan routes to the Nile Valley. It’s estimated that around 40 percent of Egypt’s population died in the following years, a staggering death toll that equalled or surpassed that of the worst-hit areas of Europe.
• 1412: The Mamluk encyclopedist al-Qalqashandi completed his fourteen century encyclopedia in which he briefly describes the situation at Quseir al-Qadim, noting how goods arriving at the port were transported overland via Wadi Hammamat to Qus in the Nile Valley, and also suggesting that its trade was starting to suffer from growing competition from the Sinai port of Al-Tur.(4) However the notion that competition came primarily from Al-Tur runs contrary to some evidence suggesting that smaller Red Sea ports such as Al-Tur were themselves being eclipsed by the growing commercial importance of Jeddah.
• 1400s: it is possible that in the short term, the positive impact of growing pilgrim numbers may have either mitigated or balanced out the negative impact of increasing competition from other ports. However, during the fifteenth century the population of El Qusier declined, which according to historian Charles Le Quesne was ‘probably an indication of the gradual weakening of the power of central government.'[5]

• 1498: Quseir al-Qadim suffered another setback to its trade when the Portuguese explorer and nobleman Vasco da Gama led an expedition which discovered the alternative Cape route to India. However, fortunately this was only temporary.
• 1513: Afonso de Albuquerque, the ruthless and powerful Portuguese admiral and governor of India, stopped briefly at Quseir al-Qadim as his expeditionary fleet made its way up the Red Sea. He noted that ‘Coçaer… is a large city, but depopulated, with old buildings of masonry and ruins, churches having marks of crosses on their walls and inscriptions in Greek letters, from which it appears that at some time or other it was inhabited by Christians.'[6]
• As there is little archaeological evidence for this, his account is likely to have either invented the presence of churches or exaggerated their number. This should not be surprising. Almost as strong as d’Albuquerque’s determination to extend Portuguese influence and control, was his vision of Christianising the East and countering Islamic power.

Ottoman El Quseir 1517 – 1798

• 1500s: Perseverance and fortune eventually favoured El Quseir’s merchants, as the rise of the Ottoman Empire gradually brought greater security to Red Sea passage, even though the process was not without some catastrophic setbacks. This allowed the Indian Ocean trade to slowly regain its momentum and also led to a rise in the number of hajj pilgrims travelling via El Quseir to Mecca.
• 1517: Selim 1 (also known as Selim the Grim), 1512-1520, ordered a new port to be built 8 km to the south of Quseir al-Qadim, which, due to its southward orientation, would be better protected from the northerly winds.

• 1541: The new settlement at El Quseir was burned to the ground. A Portuguese Red Sea armada of 12 galleons and carracks and 60 galleys, under Portuguese nobleman João de Castro, anchored off the town. ‘The people of Quseir could only lament the passing of the Portuguese,’ De Castro noted darkly, ‘because we set their town alight and destroyed it.’ He and other Portuguese explorers routinely acted with extreme cruelty against indigenous populations, torturing and executing prisoners of war, trading in slaves, forcing Muslims and Hindus to convert to Christianity, looting and, as in El Quseir, resorting to scorched earth tactics against towns, villages and crops.
• De Castro gives an interesting description of what remained of Quseir al-Qadim. ‘Two leagues (8 kilometres) further north there is a town that was formerly established on the beach…. Still today one can see the remains of the old town; for this reason it’s called Old Quseir…. It is a small place and more sterile and sad than any other in the universe. The houses there differ little from animals’ stalls. A few have stone and mud walls, the others are simply roofless mud brick structures.'[1] It’s not clear whether he also destroyed the little that remained of it, or whether, due to its condition, he felt such work would be a wasted effort.

• 1571: We know, based on a firman or royal decree found in the Ottoman Archives at Istanbul, that Sinan Pasha, governor of Egypt, informed sultan Selim II, to cite the firman, that the port of El Quseir, despite its importance as a supply port for the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, could not ‘be defended from disorders and wickednesses of mischief-making Arabs, who many times killed the notables and plundered all their properties, and that remaining weak people lost the strength to stay and were forced to flee,’ as a result of which ‘the mentioned district is completely devastated, the port is also out of use, and that it would be impossible to bring back not even one person unless a fortress for defence from disorder makers will be built.’
• 19 September 1571: Sultan Selim II or his Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokollu replied: ‘So I ordered: As you asked for, at the mentioned place build a firm fortress, being cautious not to make wasting and squandering, place enough quantity of guards and arms, bring the runaways back to their places and make them settle.'[2] From this crucial piece of documentary evidence we know that the construction of the fort at El Quseir is likely to have started in 1571 or soon after.
• Archaeologist and historian Charles Le Quesne, in his detailed book on the fort, suggests that its conception should be seen in ‘the context of an extensive refortification of the pilgrimage routes by the Ottomans in the sixteenth century’ and notes that, based on surviving documents listing salaries, its initial garrison may have numbered around sixty to seventy soldiers.[3]
• 1704: A plaque, with this date, marks the construction of the smaller minaret of the Sheikh Al-Farran Mosque, which still stands beside El Quseir’s harbour. Though the mosque itself is thought to predate the minaret, much about its namesake, Sheikh Al-Farran, remains cloaked in mystery. Originating from the Hejaz region (modern-day Saudi Arabia), he left behind little more than legend. Yet after his death, local sailors embraced him as their patron saint, weaving his memory into the spiritual fabric of the town.
• February/March 1769: The Scottish landowner and traveller James Bruce arrived in El Quseir on his journey to Ethiopia to discover the source of the Nile. He gives a fascinating description of the condition of ‘Cossier’ and its fort, which suggests that the town and the citadel were both suffering from economic decline and administrative neglect.
• ‘Cosseir,’ Bruce wrote, ‘is a small mud-walled village, built upon the shore, among hillocks of floating sand. It is defended by a square fort of hewn stone, with square towers in the angles, which have in them three small cannon of iron, and one of brass, all in very bad condition; of no other use but to terrify the Arabs, and hinder them from plundering the town when full of corn, going to Mecca in time of famine. The walls are not high; nor was it necessary, if the great guns were in order. But as this is not the case, the ramparts are heightened by clay, or by mud-walls, to screen the soldier from the fire-arms of the Arabs, that might otherwise command them from the sandy hills in the neighbourhood.’
• Bruce also made additional comments that suggest that the town’s inhabitants and merchants were so concerned by the threat of Bedouin raids that they had constructed a high mud wall around the settlement and particularly all its shops, warehouses and granaries. He added that while there were regular exports of grain, there was little merchandise being imported, except for ‘coarse India goods’ for Upper Egypt, as onward shipments further south to Dongola and Sennar in Sudan had been ‘interrupted.'[4]

• July 1777: The Irish poet and writer Eyles Irwin spent nearly three weeks at El Quseir, as a guest of the local sheikh, while travelling along the Arabian and Egyptian coasts of the Red Sea. Like Bruce, eight years earlier, he was evidently shocked at the delipidated state of the fort and town, commenting “It was formerly strong enough, to have withstood a regular attack; the walls being of stone, and raised to a considerable height. But at present, it is in a defenceless state ; the breaches which time has made in it, being repaired with mud-work, and not more than three dismantled pieces of cannon left to protect it.’
• Archaeologist Charles Le Quesne’s recent research on the fort seems to partially corroborate Irwin’s observations. He observed that certain areas of the fort had been patched up with ‘small blocks of rubble in a coarse mud mortar’ and concludes that ‘we can say that at least some of the internal buildings of the fort and its defenses were left to decay and collapse.'[5]
• As for the town itself, Irwin remarked that it was in an even ‘more miserable condition,’ explaining that ‘of all the numerous houses which once reared their heads here; nothing but their walls are standing; and of the mosques, which good Mussulmen (Muslims) esteem beyond all other edifices, but the remains of two now can be discerned and one of these bowed almost to the ground… It is a matter of conjecture whether, in fifty years hence, there will be any traces of habitations on a spot, which at this moment exhibits only the outlines of them.'[6]

• 11-13 November 1792: The Oxford graduate and seasoned traveller William George Brown paid a brief but insightful visit to El Quseir. Although he only stayed for two days, he made some illuminating comments about the town, local commerce and its inhabitants, noting that ‘the dress and apparently the language of the people of Cossir, approach more to those of the Eastern shore of the Arabian Gulf (meaning the Red Sea), than to those of the Egyptians. They are typically armed with the jembia (jambiya?), a crooked knife, often not less than a yard long, and commonly a lance. Indeed they appear rather settlers from the opposite shore than native Egyptians.’
• Turning his attention to the town’s trade, Brown painted a picture of a relatively buoyant market. He noted that ‘the commerce in Coffee here is not inconsiderate. Formerly all Upper Egypt was supplied with coffee by way of Suez and Kahira (Cairo), but the Beys having levied a very heavy duty on that commodity, the inhabitants began to import from Cossir for themselves, whence they are now supplied with the best coffee, and at a cheaper rate than Suez. The town is (also) supplied with excellent fish, and pepper and other spices are brought there free of duty.’
• There was also a small but presumably lucrative trade in slaves. He explained that ‘some Abyssinian slaves, transported from Jidda, are landed there and carried to Kahira, but in very small number,’ adding that while he was there ‘a beautiful girl, of about fifteen, was sold for a hundred mahbubs, or about 30l sterling (equivalent to a sum of around six thousand pounds sterling in 2025.)’
• As for El Quseir itself, Brown reported that ‘the houses in Cossir are built of clay, and the number of inhabitants settled there very small, though the strangers, who are continually passing and repassing, augment them prodigiously.’ He added that he could ‘observe no remain of antiquity within the limits of Cossir, and it was not possible to stray to a distance from it.'[7]

El Quseir under French Occupation 1798-1801

• 28 May 1799: Nearly a year after Napoleon had led a French invasion of Egypt and defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids (21 July 1798), the new French governor of Upper (southern) Egypt, General Augustin Daniel Belliard, led a large French force from the Nile eastwards across the Eastern Desert through the arid Wadi Hammamat valley and seized El Quseir and its fort without any resistance. He left a garrison of about 250 soldiers of the 21ème demi-brigade d’infanterie légère under the command of General Donzelot.  The French built a tall viewing platform within its walls (now rebuilt),  widened the ramparts and added a number of cannon, some of which can still be seen.  
• August 1799: The fort’s strengthened defences endured a relentless three-day assault from two British 32-gun frigates, HMS Daedalus and HMS Fox, which unleashed an estimated 6,000 cannonballs upon it. Despite their eventual retreat, the powerful bombardment from these battleships left significant breaches in the walls, particularly near the main entrance. These were gradually repaired by Donzelot’s men over the next 22 months.
• June 1801: The fort was finally deserted by the French when a formidable force of around 6,000 British and Indian soldiers, led by General Baird, landed at El Quseir. Baird’s men then embarked on a grueling ten-day march across the Eastern Desert to capture Qena on the Nile. This remarkable achievement helped to hasten the final surrender of French forces in Egypt by September.

Nineteenth Century El Quseir 1801-1900

• 1805-1848: According to German physician Carl Benjamin Klunzinger, who lived and worked in El Quseir during the 1860s, El Qusier was favoured over Suez by Egypt’s Ottoman viceroy and de facto ruler Muhammad Ali (who governed Egypt from 1805 to 1848). During the earlier Ottoman period, Suez had been favoured as the main port of export for grain for Mecca and Medina, but under Muhammad Ali this now changed in El Quseir’s favour, which now became the main port through which an annual 27,000 tons of wheat, barley, lentils and other food products were exported to Arabia.
• This change was also partially due to economic reasons as, according to Klunzinger, the grain of Upper Egypt (located closed to El Quseir) was better and cheaper than the grain of the Delta (closer to Suez). Consequently the population of El Quseir had increased to around six to eight thousands by the mid nineteenth century.
• 1816: The Egyptian Ottoman Viceroy and de facto ruler Mohammed Ali instructed his oldest son, Ibrahim Pasha, to sail from El Quseir with an expeditionary force to resume the Ottoman-Saudi war, which had already seen Egyptian Ottoman forces seize Yanbu, Medina, Jeddah and Mecca in an earlier campaign between 1811 and 1813. Now, under Ibrahim Pasha, an Egyptian-Ottoman force advanced deep into central Arabia, burning down towns and villages and slaughtering or enslaving many women and children, until they finally captured the Saudi Emir, Abdullah bin Saud, who was taken to Constantinople, where he was publicly executed. This savage but successful series of campaigns against the Saudis served to strengthen Egyptian and Ottoman control over the Red Sea, which was of obvious benefit to Egyptian merchants at El Quseir.
• January 1817: The 40-year-old French painter and antiquarian, Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste, Comte de Forbin, made his way to Qena during an adventurous journey down the Nile. In his travelogue Voyage dans le Levant, published the following year, he made a brief yet intriguing mention of Cosseyr (El Quseir): “this place (Qena) serves as a halting place for Cosseyr, from which it is distant about two days journey,” adding that “from Cosseyr the passage to Bombay is sometimes made in twenty days.”[1]

• 1850: The German physician Karl B. Klunzinger wrote in some detail about El Quseir’s boom years at the middle of the nineteenth century. He estimated the town’s population at about six to eight thousand, a number attracted by the benefit of freedom from military service and direct taxation, but others because almost all the trade between Egypt and Arabia passed through the port as well as approximately 30,000 pilgrims annually. This supported a wide range of businesses, and the town had some ‘thirty coffee houses, three spirit shops and more than fifty dancing girls, who inhabited a special quarter of the town.'[2]
• 21-23 May 1850: Two soon-to-be legendary figures in literature – French novelist Gustave Flaubert, renowned for Madame Bovary, and his lifelong friend, the writer and photographer Maxime du Camp – visited El Quseir during their tour of Egypt. Their outward trek from Qena in the Nile Valley across the desolate, hyper-arid Eastern Desert took three days and the return journey four.[3]
• Maxime du camp later recalled, ‘The town has only four streets, but they are wide and truly clean…. (and) the houses, built of mud and stone, are topped with terraces and frequently whitewashed,’ adding that ‘the Turkish governor resides in a large palace that, as is common throughout Egypt, resembles a barracks,’ above which flew the Ottoman red flag with a white crescent.
• However he was not so impressed by El Quseir’s harbour, writing ‘There is no proper port; it is merely a natural harbor, sheltered only from the westerly winds by the high desert mountains. The pier, constructed of closely spaced planks, stands on stilts and extends into the sea for five or six hundred paces. The water is clear, blue and so transparent that one could easily count the pebbles and shells on the sea floor. Forty-two ships press against each other, moored with palm tree ropes to stakes driven into the shore; with the slightest breeze, everything is bound to collide, break, and sink in this harbour, which is marked by no lighthouse or beacon to guide the way.'[4]
• 1858: The completion of an overland railway from Alexandria on the Mediterranean to the port Suez on the Red Sea comes as a massive economic shock to El Quseir’s economy, as it began to loose much of its share of the ever growing volume of trade between Asia and Europe via the Red Sea.
• Early 1860s: Writing about the consequences of the loss of trade to the new Alexandria to Suez railway, the German physician Karl B. Klunzinger commented that ‘the number of the government employees (in El Quseir) was greatly diminished, that of the inhabitants sank to 1,500, whole streets were deserted and fell into ruins. But still more blows fell.'[5]
• 1864: The year is likely to have seen a sharp fall in the population as food became scarce and the death rate surged and desperate people across Egypt migrated back to rural areas. The Egyptian government also halted grain exports to Arabia which had flowed primarily through the port of El Quseir in an attempt to reduce the shortages, but while this may have helped to limit the impact of the famine across Egypt, it was a devastating economic blow for the town’s traders.  After negotiations with Cairo, the merchants at El Quseir were allowed to export nearly three quarters of the 1,650 tons already in storage in the town, but 450 tons had to be stored to feed the poorer among the town’s population.[6]

• 1869: The Suez canal was opened, worsening the blow to El Quseir’s maritime economy, as now goods could be shipped directly from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, rather than having to pass overland across Egypt.

Phosphate mining transforms El Qusier – 1910-1945

• 1910: The first geological exploration of phosphate in the mountainous Eastern Desert inland of El Quseir takes place under the direction of Italian geologist and engineer Emilio Cortese.
• 1910: The French archaeologist Jules Couyat-Barthoux was possibly the first modern scholar to record the presence of the medieval ruins at Quseir El Qadim, some 8 km north of where El Quseir’s town centre stands today.
• 1912: Emilio Cortese publishes a detailed report regarding the prospects for phosphate mining in the El Quseir region in the Bellitino della Societa Geografica. The positive findings encourage the Banco di Roma to establish the Societa Egiziana per L’Estrazione e il Commercio dei Fosfati, with its headquarters in Alexandria, and the newly formed company hires Cortese as its director and lead engineer.(1)
• Two initial phosphate mines, including one at Wadi Mahamid close to the Nile Valley, were abandoned due to the high cost of transporting the phosphate such a long distance to El Quseir or any other port. Despite that, the same year the total annual output from Egyptian phosphate mines reaches 70,000 tons (presumably still primarily from the British owned mines at Safaga which had started operating in 2011).
• 1914: The first successful local phosphate mine was opened at Gebel Nakheil, approximately 12 kilometres north west of the port (at approx 26.17 N 34.11 E). Its production of phosphate soon rivalled that of a British owned mine at Safaga, and phosphate from both mines began to be shipped from the port at El Quseir.(2)
• Under Cortese’s guidance, mining and processing equipment began to be erected along with key infrastructure such as new loading dock and a narrow gauge railway. Various other construction projects were also launched, including a hospital, a series of colonial-style homes for Italian workers, administrative offices, a radio station, and a desalination plant.

• 1917: Emilio Cortese quit as director of mining operations at El Quseir to return to Italy and, despite being over sixty years old, volunteered for military service in the First World War.
• 1918-1919: However, the war seriously disrupted trade and combined with managerial mistakes the company only narrowly escaped bankruptcy.
• 1920: With much needed additional funding to stave off a financial collapse, the Societa Egiziana per L’Estrazione e il Commercio dei Fosfati hired Riccardo Decima as its new director and purchased the rights to open its second mine in the area at Gebel Duwy from a British mining consortium. Gebel Duwy was a long mountainous ridge of limestone located about 20 kilometres west of El Quseir rising to a maximum height of around 570 metres above sea level.
• 1923: Phosphate mining commences at Gebel Duwy. By the 1920s, Egypt was exporting vast quantities of phosphates worldwide, particularly to Italy, Japan and Australia.

• 1926 Giacomo Acerbo, an early political associate of Mussolini and now a key minister in Italy’s fascist government, visited the mines presumably to report back on the company’s progress. By that year Gebel Duwy had become the most productive of El Quseir’s mines.
• 28 December 1926: King Faud I, who nominally ruled Egypt from 1917 to 1936 (under coercive British colonial influence), visited the mine at Gebel Duwy. A plaque was erected by the mine entrance to commemorate his visit, but was later chiselled away. It’s not clear whether this was done by angry miners or whether its destruction might have been ordered years later once Egypt became a republic.[3]
• 1927: The Italian state treasury purchased all the El Quseir phosphate company’s shares, and a new state owned company set up – the the Società Anonima Fertilizzanti Naturali Italia (SAFNI).[4]

• 1930: Construction began on a single storey school at the northern end of the Phosphate Colony’s main square, located a short walk north of El Quseir’s town centre and just west of the Church of Saint Barbara. Designed by the renowned architect Florestano Di Fausto, a prominent figure in Italy’s Fascist-era Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the building’s striking design is unmistakable. From above or the side, its layout clearly forms the shape of a cross, while its distinctive facade, facing the square, boasts an elegant portico entrance and a Renaissance-style Palladian window.
• By the 1950s, at the peak of El Quseir’s phosphate boom, the school was home to around 120 students.[5] Today, the building remains standing, though whether you can venture inside depends on its current use—it has recently served as a police station.[6]
• It’s intersting to note that Di Fausto was unable to oversee the entire construction of the school. In 1930, likely at the request of Mussolini, he was called upon to make alterations to the historic Palace of Pope Pius IV in Rome, transforming it into Italy’s new Embassy to the Holy See. Throughout his career with Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Di Fausto was responsible for designing a number of significant buildings, including the Italian legations in Cairo and Belgrade, the consulate in Tunis, and the embassy in Ankara, among many others.
• 1931: The Administrative Building, a large elegant two story colonial style mansion, with square corner turrets linked by wide porticoed passages and graceful archways, was built in 1931. You can still see it in the Phosphate Colony, less than a kilometre north of El Quseir’s old town, standing just to the south of what is now St. Mary’s Church. The rear of the building faces the square, while its front overlooks the sea. Once serving as the director’s residence as well as housing distinguished guests, it is thought that King Farouk himself may have stayed here (see 1939-40). Locals refer to it as the King Farouk Rest House, a nod to its probable royal connections.
• 1933: The Casa del Fascio (Fascist Headquarters) building was built, which contained a canteen and workers’ recreation club. It can still be found in a relatively isolated location between the Administrative Building (King Farouk’s Rest House) and the sea. Years later its austere architecture made for a bleak and foreboding background to the Egyptian film El Gareema (The Crime) – see 5 January 2022.
• The same year a new phosphate mine at Hamadat opened, located in the mountainous Eastern Desert to the south west of El Quseir.
• Also, at about this time, an Italian newspaper published an article on the Phosphate Colony, with a photograph of school children dressed in Ballila blackshirt (Fascist) uniforms, and calling it ‘Little Italy.'[7]
• 1938: The Italian run phosphate company SAFNI built an eye-catching Franciscan Catholic church, designed by Riccardo Decima and named St. Barbara’s, after the patron saint of miners. It was located in the phosphate colony area just a short walk north of the town centre. With its gothic arch, rose window, and a Byzantine cross perched atop its spire, the church exuded a unique blend of architectural styles. Though it was a Franciscan church, its management fell under the jurisdiction of Egypt’s Coptic Church. The building closely resembled its modern successor—the Church of St. Mary, constructed on the same location in 2007. The new church is well worth a visit, with its particularly striking and beautiful interior and its interesting location.
• 1939: Mining engineer Adolfo Laurenti was appointed technical director of the phosphate plant and mines at El Quseir.

• 1939-1940: King Farouk, photographed wearing a naval uniform, visited El Quseir following a Red Sea cruise. He met the local phosphate company’s technical director Adolfo Laurenti and, according to an Egyptian newspaper, handed out clothes and flour to locals, while his wife Farida donated a ram to the town, which was either embalmed or taxidermied, presumably after the meat was eaten, and put on a display in a small school museum (likely to have been the elementary school adjacent to the church in the Phosphate Colony).[8] The king probably stayed at least one night at the Administrative Building in the Phosphate Colony, a short walk north of the town centre and close the beach, which locals refer to as the King Farouk Rest House.
• 1940: With Fascist Italy’s entrance into the Second World War in June 1940, the British military, which was still based in Egypt, interned the Italian workers at El Quseir’s phosphate mines and processing plant. They were sent first to Qena in the Nile Valley and subsequently to barbed wire encampments at Ismailia and Geneifa, where many Italian and German soldiers were also held, on the Ismailia to Suez road. The women and children were interned locally at the Administrative Building (locally referred to as the King Farouk Rest House), the largest building still standing in the Phosphate Colony, and located just to the south of the church.

El Quseir Timeline 1945 to 1964

• 1946: The Franciscan Sisters opened a single storey convent, still standing at the southern end of the long square within El Quseir’s Phosphate Colony, as well as a school were girls, mostly Egyptian, could learn sewing and embroidery.
• 1951: The Egyptian government acquired a fifty percent ownership stake in SAFNI, the Italian state-owned phosphate company that ran the mines and processing plant at El Quseir.[1]
• 1958: Under the leadership of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian government began the process of nationalising SAFNI’s phosphate mining and processing operations. While discussions between SAFNI and the Egyptian state had been ongoing since 1933 to determine the company’s value, any agreement on that remained elusive. A number of Italians continued to work at the mines, including local technical director and advisor Mario Follador. The Red Sea phosphate company took over the direction of operations.[2]
• March 1962: The Gebel Nakheil phosphate mine, 12 kilometres North West of El Quseir, finally closes after 39 years in operation.
• 2 September 1963: Mario Follador, a local technical director and the last Italian worker at El Quseir’s phosphate mining company, finally leaves after being employed there for twenty six years. The phosphate mines and processing factory were temporarily shut down.
• 1964: The decommissioned phosphate mines and processing factory at El Quseir were brought back to life and integrated into a nominally private company – the Egyptian General Mining Corporation (EGMC) by Republican Decree No. 2726 of 1964. It’s unclear, however, how much state control was retained over decision making.[3]
• The miners worked underground relying on pillars to hold up the mines’ roofs. After the ore was mined, it was crushed, dried, and screened at the mine and then shipped to the port at El Quseir. However, some of the material was washed with seawater and dried at the El Quseir processing plant. The final product was approximately 30% pure (based on the percentage of phosphorus pentoxide – P2O5).[4]

El Quseir Timeline 1965 to 2004

• 6 January 1971: El Quseir records its lowest ever temperature of just 1°C. Such instances of extreme cold in Egypt are extremely rare and only occur during winter months, usually at higher elevations or desert areas during the night.
• 1975: A phosphate export port was opened at Hamrawein, located just 24 kilometers to the north, offering an alternative to the facilities at El Quseir. The port had a 110-meter-long breakwater to shield it from the region’s prevailing northerly winds and had a daily loading capacity of 6,500 tons of phosphate ore. Due to its proximity to the phosphate mines, it eventually surpassed El Quseir as the primary hub for exporting phosphate. However, in recent years, commercial activity at Hamrawein has waned, with many young people leaving the area and a lack of new investment. Despite this, some hope the small town could be developed as an interesting site of the El Quseir region’s historical and industrial heritage.[1]
• Previously in use for several decades, the coast guard station at El Quseir Fort was abandoned.[2]
• 1978: Egypt’s Ministry of Housing and Development estimated El Qusier’s population at around 15,000, most of whom lived ‘with only minimal services.’ The town’s biggest challenge, according to the report, was access to water. Water was transported by lorry from Safaga and rationed to just half a ‘can’ per person per day, six days a week. While a new 240-kilometre pipeline from Qena was under construction, only 57 kilometres had been completed so far.[3]
• The report indicated that the total annual phosphate output for the El Quseir region was about 105,000 tons, including about 15,000 tons from the neighbouring Hamrawein area.[4]
• 12 July 1983: El Quseir recorded its highest temperature ever recorded – as of 2025 – a scorching 46°C (115°F), well above the town’s average July high of 34°C (93°F). Even so, it still falls short of Egypt’s national record: a blistering 50.9°C (123.6°F) registered in Aswan on June 7, 2024 – a temperature that also stands as Africa’s highest reliably recorded temperature to date.
• 1988: Total phosphate rock production of Egypt was 1.15 million tons, but it’s not clear how much of this came from the El Quseir region. Egypt’s output was dwarfed by that of the United States (45.39 million) and the Soviet Union (34.4 million).[5] Nevertheless the phosphate rock deposits at El Quseir and Safaga remained an important economic asset.
• 1993: The total combined annual production of phosphate from the mines at Safaga and El Quseir reached an estimated 450,000 tons.[6]
• 1996: El Quseir’s population had by now grown significantly, reaching 25,600 residents, comprised of 5,325 families, with an average family size of 4.8. This remarkable growth marked a remarkable 71% increase from its population of just 15,000 in 1978.
• El Quseir’s demographic landscape had undergone a dramatic transformation since William George Brown’s observations in 1792, when he noted that the city’s inhabitants were primarily Arabs, with little to no presence of Egyptians. By 1996, the town had become home to a large number of immigrants from Upper Egypt, lured by opportunities in the thriving phosphate industry, while many people from the neighboring Luxor and Qena provinces, who had initially found work in Hurghada’s booming tourism sector, were drawn to El Quseir, attracted by its untapped tourism potential.[7]
• Teaming up with USAID, the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) began to breath new life into the historic Quseir Fort—restoring its crumbling walls and transforming it into a vibrant visitor centre to celebrate the rich heritage of El Quseir and Egypt’s Eastern Desert.[8]
• By 1997, according to architectural heritage expert Ashraf Salama, more than 70% of the historic buildings in the old town were in a mediocre or deteriorated condition, with over 7% having suffered severe structural failure or completely collapsed during the previous ten years. This was a consequence partly of limited private funding for repairs, stemming from concerns about property tenure and the low incomes of residents. Additionally, uncontrolled development, driven by a growing population, raised fears that El Quseir’s picturesque historic houses, which were crucial to attracting tourists, would gradually be replaced by unattractive concrete buildings.[9]
• 1 October 1997: Running the entire distance from Alexandria to Cape Town was always going to be a monumental challenge. Just 17 days into their journey, on 1 October 1997, two runners, Nicholas Bourne and Chris Rainbow, had reached El Quseir. Their mission was to raise £1 million for Save the Children and the Born Free Foundation, but their plans hit a major obstacle when an Egyptian army officer informed them that, due to the volatile security situation in Sudan, they would be unable to cross the military zone at the border.
• However, they were welcome to stay in El Quseir or any other part of Egypt. According to The Times (13 Nov 1997), the pair spent some time in the country, trying to work out a solution. After weeks of negotiations, Bourne and his support team decided to change course and run the route in reverse, from Cape Town to Cairo. They completed the challenge on 5 December 1998, arriving at the Sphinx, where the Cairo Tourism Authority held a reception to honor his remarkable achievement. In the 318 days since leaving Cape Town, Bourne had worn through 30 pairs of running shoes!
• 1997/1998: From October 1997 to May 1998, extensive archaeological investigations were undertaken at El Quseir’s Ottoman fort. These were run by the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) in collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
• 1998: The El Qusier phosphate processing plant was finally closed, a decision which was based on both on its declining profitability and environmental concerns, which were becoming increasingly important as the tourism sector showed increasing promise, though the nearby plant at Hamrawein continued to operate.[10]
• As El Quseir attracted people with the promise of economic opportunity, many faced a tough hurdle in the labour market. In 1998, Egyptian census data revealed that around 25% of the adult population in the town remained illiterate, while only 5% held a university degree. Furthermore, just 34% of residents had received any significant education beyond basic literacy. The same census highlighted that over 72% of the town’s men over 18 and women over 16 were married, with a divorce rate of less than 5%, which may have reflected the strong traditional values of Upper Egypt.[11]
• 2003: Total phosphate rock output of Egyptian mines reached 2.18 million tons, making it the twelfth largest world producer and equal to the combined output of India and Canada. It was also almost double its level in 1988, but it’s not clear how much of this came from mines in the El Quseir region.[12]

El Quseir Timeline since 2005

• 2005: The film Ahlam Omrena (Dream of Our Lives) was filmed partially in El Quseir, including a dramatic stand off scene high above the harbour on the phosphate cable way (which has sadly since been demolished) though much of the old phosphate colony still stands a short walk north from the town centre and is well worth a visit. There seems to be disagreement online as to whether the plot involving a group of friends who decide to open a coffee shop for tourists, is supposed to be set in Sharm El Sheikh or Marsa Alam. However in the movie which can still be viewed on Youtube, you see the group arriving at Marsa Alam Airport and two women climbing into a hotel limousine with “Iberotel Coraya Beach” clearly written on the door. The hotel is located just off the El Quseir road, close to Port Ghalib.
• 2010: The historic Old Police Station, which overlooks El Quseir’s picturesque harbour, was officially transferred to the Ministry of Antiquities. This followed the police station’s relocation in 2009. Before serving as a police station, the building had a distinguished past, acting as the governor’s headquarters during the era of Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805–1848) and continuing through to the reign of Egypt’s final khedive (or Ottoman Viceroy), Abbas Helmy II (1892–1914).[1]
• 2017: According to Al Arabiya, there was an outbreak of Dengue fever at El Quseir, which spread via water tanks and mosquitoes, but the authorities acted quickly to eliminate the mosquitoes and control the disease. Small outbreaks might become gradually more common due to climate change, but as long as they can be quickly controlled the risk to the city’s inhabitants remains relatively low, with a death rate where appropriate medical care is available significantly lower than one percent. Over 2,000 cases were reported in the surprisingly large 2017 outbreak, but Egypt’s Ministry of Health reported only one fatality.[2]
• March 2019: Two residents of El Quseir raised concerns over plans for a tourist development featuring a yacht marina on the land where the old Phosphate Colony is located. The Colony, a short walk to the north of the town centre, is a fascinating virtual time capsule comprised of residential, administrative, educational, religious and industrial buildings constructed by Italians during the first half of the twentieth century when there was a large phosphate processing plant on the site, and include what is known locally as King Farouk’s Rest House (see 1931).
• As reported by the Egyptian newspaper Masry El Yaym and the online magazine Egyptian Chonicles, the commercial value of the land was allegedly estimated to be as high as 2 billion Egyptian pounds. However, the complaint and report by the two residents filed with the Red Sea Prosecutor’s Office, made it clear that they were also speaking on behalf of other El Quseir residents who also opposed the project, explaining that the development would lead to the destruction of a site of significant historical importance, which had already become a popular tourist attraction in its own right.[3]
• July 2021: El Balad News reported that a former mayor had said that a complaint had been sent to Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities regarding the Old Police Station (and former Ottoman governorate building) overlooking El Quseir’s picturesque habour, which was suffering from deterioration and neglect, including broken windows and doors. The Ministry had responded in May 2019 that a ‘comprehensive restoration project’ was being prepared, but, according to the former mayor, nothing had yet been done.[4]

• 5 January 2022: The Egyptian film El Gareema (The Crime), starring Ahmed Ezz and Menna Shalaby, brought El Quseir to the big screen. It set a daily ticket sales record when it was released in cinemas, using the town of El Quseir as its main backdrop and in particular one of its little known examples of austere fascist architecture, located close to the beach on the edge of the phosphate colony, a short walk to the north of the town centre – the Fascist Party Headquarters (Casa del Fascio). In multiple scenes, it makes for a bleak and foreboding backdrop to the thriller in which a dangerous and violent criminal, now a psychiatric patient, recalls his past. Some of the film is also shot at El Quseir’s fishing harbour and within the old phosphate processing plant.
• In real life, the Casio del Fascio, including its canteen and recreation club, was linked to the huge local phosphate company’s ownership by the Italian state and like some of the other buildings in the colony, it contrasts starkly with the warm colours, narrow streets and intimate alleyways of the coral stone houses in the old town.
• 2023: The population of the El Quseir region, including Hamrawein, and covering 7,636 square kilometres (most of which is largely uninhabited desert), was estimated at about 50,000, the vast majority of whom were presumably living in the town of El Quseir itself.[5]

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Pharaonic El Quseir – footnotes

1. Filip Taterka, Hatshepsut’s expedition to the land of Punt – novelty or tradition? An offprint from Current Research in Egyptology 2015, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Symposium, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, 15-18
2. Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4, Chapter 42, English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.

Medieval El Quseir – footnotes

1. Katherine Strange Burke, ‘The Sheikh’s House at Quseir Al Qadim: Documenting a Thirteenth Century Red Sea Port,’ Oriental Institute Publications, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago,
2. D. S. Whitcomb and J. H. Johnson, Quseir Al-Qadim 1978: Preliminary Report, The Electronic Publications Initiative of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, p. 3.  
3. Katherine Strange Burke, Op. cit.
4. Ibid.
5. Charles Le Quesne, ‘Quseir: An Ottoman and Napoleonic Fortress on the Red Sea Coast of Egypt,’ The American University in Cairo, Cairo, 2007, p27.
6. The commentaries of the great Afonso d’Alboquerque, Second Viceroy of India, Internet Archive, see section 38.

Ottoman El Quseir, 1517 – 1798 – footnotes

1. Charles Le Quesne, Op. cit., p. 31.
2. Ibid., p. 33.
3. Ibid., p. 37.
4. James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile – In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 in Five Volumes, Volume 1,
   G. G. J. and J. Robertson, Edinburgh, 1790, p. 189.
5. Charles Le Quesne, Op. cit., p. 88. Le Quesne goes on to say that he felt, given the poor condition of El Quseir’s fort at the time, that it was unlikely that it was occupied by a full garrison.
6. Eyles Irwin, ‘A Series of Adventures in the Course of a Voyage up the Red Sea on the coats of Arabia and Egypt, J. Dodsley, Pall Mall, London, 1780, pp. 121-122.
7. William George Brown, ‘Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria: From the Year 1792 to 1798,‘ London, 1799, p. 145.

Nineteenth Century El Quseir – footnotes

1. Forbin, Comte de, ‘Travels in Egypt, being a continuation of the Travels in the Holy Land, in 1817-18,’ London, 1820, p. 38. This is an English translation of the second part of the original book Voyage dans le Levant, published in 1819.
2. Carl B. Klunzinger,Upper Egypt: Its People and Products, Scribner, Armstrong & Co. New York, 1878, pp. 271-277
3. Desert Networks – Du Camp, Flaubert 1850 – Qena – Quseir roadsDN_MTR0017
4. Maxime Du Camp, Le Nil Egypte e Nubie 2e ed., pp 277-278 via the following link. My own translation.
5. Carl B. Klunziner, Op. cit., pp. 271-277.
6. Ibid: Tonnage of wheat grain calculated using a conversion rate of 1 ardab equalling 150 kg.

Phosphate mining transforms El Quseir – footnotes

1. Antonella Cabassi, ‘Kossier: A Phosphate Mining Town,’ in Claudine Piaton et al, Building Beyond The Mediterranean – Studying The Archives of European Businesses (1860-1970), Open Edition Books, 2012, p108.
2. Mirhan Damir et al., Patterns of Detachment: Spatial Transformations of the Phosphate Industry in El‐Quseir, Egypt 2021, Urban Planning, 2023, Volume 8, Issue 1, p 69.
3. Bianca Gera e Renze Pellegrini via Wikipedia.
4. Antonella Cabassi, Op. cit., p. 109.
5. Ibid,. p. 114.
6. Mirham Damir et al., Op. cit., p 69.
7. Antonella Cabassi, Op. cit., p. 109.
8. Ildo Pellegrini, Agordini a Kosseir – Storia di una comunità nelle miniere di fosfati in Egitto, Agorà Libreria Editrice, July 2011.

El Quseir Timeline 1945 to 1964 – footnotes

1. Steven J. Van Kauwenbergh, Fertiliser Raw Material Resources of Africa, IFDC, Alabama, USA, December 2006, p. 184.
2. Mirhan Damir et al., Patterns of Detachment: Spatial Transformations of the Phosphate Industry in El‐Quseir, Egypt 2021, Urban Planning, 2023, Volume 8, Issue 1, pp. 69-71
3. Mirhan Damir et al., Op. cit., pp. 69-70.
4. Steven J. Van Kauwenbergh, Op. cit., p. 184.

El Qusier Timeline 1965 to 2004 – footnotes

1. Mohamed El-Sayed Soliman, An Economic and Historical Legacy… The Phosphate Plant in Hamrawein Awaits Revival, Al Masry Al Youm, November 30, 2024, 06:53
2. ‘Red Sea: Quseir Fort,’ American Research Center in Egypt.
3. Arabic Republic of Egypt, Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction, Advisory Committee for Reconstruction, Terms of Reference for a Regional Plan for the Red Sea Governate, January 1978. PDF document, p.156.
4. Ibid.
5. Steven J. Van Kauwenbergh, Op. cit., p. 37.
6. Sherein Ahmed M.E. Rizk, Highlights on the Beneficiation Trials of the Egyptian Phosphate Ores, Journal of Engineering Sciences, JES, Vol. 50, No. 1, January 2022, p. 7.
7. Ashraf M. A. Salama, Community Participation and the Housing Process: The Case of an Egyptian City, Quseir. Al Azhar University Engineering Journal-AUEJ, Vol. 4, Special Issue, 2000, ISSN-11106406, p. 3.
8. ‘Red Sea: Quseir Fort,’ American Research Center in Egypt.
9. Ibid., p. 4, and Ashraf M. A. Salama, Proposed Action Plan for Old Quseir: A Tourism Demonstration City. Washington DC: United States Agency for International Development. USAID Publications, 1997
10. Mirhan Damir et al., Patterns of Detachment: Spatial Transformations of the Phosphate Industry in El‐Quseir, Egypt 2021, Urban Planning, 2023, Volume 8, Issue 1, p 70.
11. CAPMAS (1998). Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. Initial Results of the General Census for People, Housing, and Buildings. Cairo: CAPMAS Press.
12. Steven J. Van Kauwenbergh, Op. cit., p. 38.

El Qusier Timeline since 2005 – footnotes

1. Ibrahim Jadallah, Governorates of the ancient city on the Red Sea are seeking to exploit it for tourism, El Balad News, July 28, 2021 – 11:40 PM
2. Marwar Omar, Dengue fever in Egypt: Current situation and future risks, Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine 17(10):p 429-431, October 2024. 
3. Masry El Yawm, 29 March 2019 and ‘Saving Egyptian Heritage : The old Italian Phosphate Company Colony in El-Quseir,’ Egyptian Chronicles, 30 March 2019.
4. Ibrahim Jadallah, Op. cit.
5. El Quseir City,’ Ammon News, 9 September 2023.