Qasr Ibrim
The only Nubian monument still on its original site — a hilltop fortress-town of three thousand years, now an island in Lake Nasser.
A fortress above the Nile
Qasr Ibrim stands on what was once a high cliff above the east bank of the Nile in Lower Nubia, about 60 kilometres north of Abu Simbel. Since the creation of Lake Nasser, the waters have risen around it, and it is now an island. Of all the major monuments of Egyptian Nubia, it is the only one that remains on its original site, as its hilltop location kept it above the water.
Three thousand years of history
Qasr Ibrim was occupied for about three thousand years, from the early first millennium BC until 1812, when its last Ottoman garrison left. It was successively a pharaonic, Kushite (Meroitic), Roman, Christian Nubian, Islamic and Ottoman stronghold. In 23 BC, the Roman general Petronius captured it during a campaign against the Kushites. In the Christian period it was a major centre of the Nubian kingdom of Makuria, with a cathedral built in the seventh or eighth century whose ruins still dominate the hilltop. Its dry climate preserved an extraordinary quantity of documents and textiles — manuscripts in Meroitic, Greek, Latin, Coptic, Old Nubian, Arabic and Turkish — discovered by excavations of the Egypt Exploration Society from the 1960s onwards.
Visiting
To protect the fragile site, visitors are not allowed to land on the island. Lake Nasser cruises sail close to Qasr Ibrim, allowing passengers to see the ruins of the fortress walls, houses and cathedral from the deck.
Exhibo editorial
You can't set foot on Qasr Ibrim, and that's part of its mystery. The cruise boat slows, and there it is: a crumbling hilltop town rising from the lake, walls and ruined cathedral silhouetted against the sky, the last Nubian monument still standing where it was built, surrounded by the water that drowned everything else.
Stand on deck with binoculars as the boat circles slowly. Three thousand years of soldiers, priests and bishops lived on that hill; now only the birds do.
Gallery
How to find it
Qasr Ibrim lies in Lake Nasser about 60 km north of Abu Simbel. Lake Nasser cruises between Aswan and Abu Simbel pass close to the island and slow down for viewing; bring binoculars.
