Minia

The Egyptian tentative list is a complete mess. Several proposals are placed twice. Among them are the tombs of Middle Egypt, placed as 'Minia' as well as 'The Necropolises of Middle Egypt, from the Middle Empire to the Roman period'. Anyway, of the four places covered by this proposal, me and my family saw two – Beni Hassan and Touna al-Gabal.

In Beni Hassan there are tombs of high dignitaries from the period of the twelfth dynasty, i.e. from the period between the twentieth and nineteenth centuries before Christ. Only four are available to visitors, each of them completely unique, with magnificent paintings and original columns. The whole place is well preserved and not much inferior to the tombs of the pharaohs, at least when it comes to wall decorations (see photo). We left this place delighted.

Getting to Beni Hassan is not difficult, Google Maps shows good coordinates. The end of the route is an unpaved road through the village. We visited the place in the company of two armed guards and a keyman who did not have any weapons – because there is no point, the place is safe, and the guards with pistols are just a testimony to Egyptian paranoia. The whole route takes about an hour.

Right next to Beni Hassan there is a noteworthy archeological site Speos Artemidos, but people in Beni Hassan could not show me the route to this place, and Google Maps led me to a point where there …