We awoke the next day refreshed and ready for Mons Porphyrites. Breakfast was adequate. It of course included the standard Cocoa Puffs. They had cereal and rice, made to order omelets, some kind of beans and some kind of Indian food I didn’t try.
We finally could see our hotel in daylight. In fact it was a little resort with clusters of buildings. Surrounding the hotel was a little tourist village, like something from the West transported over brick by brick. The hotel was surrounded on two sides by the Red Sea.
We loaded ourselves into the Land rovers. However, do to some re-jiggering of the passengers Charles and I were split up. I got into a Land rover that had Ken while Charles remained in the Land rover with Tamer. We didn’t have to travel very far on paved roads before heading towards the mountains and Mons Porphyrites. Tamer and Ken had selected a hotel as close as possible to the site.
After leaving the paved roads we moved onto a road of sand. This sand road was raised a few feet above the rest of the desert. It was much bumpier than the paved roads but was still relatively comfortable. The sand road seemed to head straight for the mountains that loomed ahead. After a half an hour or so the sand roads ended and the Land rovers were driving on open desert, the four of the spreading out so as not to obscure the view of the drivers behind. As we approached the mountains the ground went from sand to larger and larger rocks. The road had become much bumpier and the ride was starting to upset our stomachs. Ken called for Tamer to stop and take a rest. Most stretched their legs, others it as a bathroom break and one of the drivers took the time to perform the one of the five daily prayers of Salat, turning towards Mecca just over the Red Sea. Tamer gave everyone a date filled pastry and off we went. We stopped just a little while later to see an ancient Roman loading ramp. The blocks of porphyry would be loaded onto wagons using a great stone ramp. It was here we saw our first porphyry stones.
We continued onwards. The stones became even larger and the ride all the more rough. The mountains rose up on either side of us. We seemed to be driving through a river made of stones. Rain occurred in this region only once in eight years. When it does rain the result can be catastrophic. There is little earth to absorb the rain so a great torrents of water flow through these canyons. The violence of these storms can be seen in the size of the rocks of the riverbed. We had just missed the last storm. It had occurred two weeks before we had arrived. There were puddles in the desert that were still drying.
My stomach became all the more upset as the ride became rougher still. This was the roughest ride I’d been on, matched by none except the worst roads of Kenya. The drivers were following a path along the riverbed, but the recent rain had washed large stones across our path. Three times the drivers had to stop the cars and clear the path for us. There was little in the way of vegetation. Along the whole path we saw less than twenty trees. I’d look out from the car and see one solitary, scrawny tree in the middle of the riverbed. When we saw three of them were within visual distance at the same time, Ken quipped that that was the Eastern Desert forest.
At last we reached we reached Mons Porphyrites and at first it wasn’t much too look. It is merely ruins built into the sides of the mountain walls. We stopped in front of a fallen temple. This temple was for the benefit of the workers who mined the porphyry that the Romans valued so much. Porphyry is a purplish stone that is very hard. The Romans valued it for its strength and for the symbolism of purple. Purple was the royal color. Not much remained of the temple. On one side were stairs carved into the bare rock. A few columns were strewn about. Pottery shards were strewn about. We gathered from the temple a collection of pottery shards gathered together, in hopes of gluing them together into the jar it once was.
We walked along the side of the canyon searching the ground for good quality porphyry and interesting pottery shards. Charles grabbed a fair size hunk of porphyry. We filled the video camera bag with the stuff and left it behind to pick up later. Only 400 people have visited Mons Porphyrites since the end of the Roman era, there wasn’t much chance of thieves making off with our stones.
We found a spot where a French expedition had left many old pieces of pottery behind, letting it be sorted and catalogued for another day. Further up a hill they had dug up graves and taken nearly intact pottery. They had left them behind, exposed to the elements. The graves themselves seemed to have been dug into living rock of the canyon.
Further along and further up a hill were the remains of the village of workers. At a glance it seemed just a pile of stones, but further inspection revealed the outlines of houses. We walked among the ruins of the buildings. Occasionally support pillars still standing from the Roman era jutted about the stones. As we moved into the center of the fallen village there walls and even doorways still standing. As we moved to the opposite side of the village all that remained was a vast field of stones. Among these we saw our first sign of life in the desert: a red and black bug.
Past the village was an outcropping of rock upon which looked to be a little guardhouse made of stones. Upon this outcropping were holes dug by the French expedition. They had been digging up graves. The femurs of the ancient burial were visible with a little wiping away of dirt. Strewn around the place were fragments of bones. We found what appeared to be a finger bone, vertebrae and parts of a hip joint.
From there we walked into the middle of the riverbed where five pillars stood up from the ground. Here we found signs of a Roman well. Here we found channels of stone and hydraulic cement. It might have been designed to be open to the air.
We slowly walked back to the temple, where the Land rovers were parked, looking for pieces of porphyry. We made a stop along the way to fetch the camera bag. Others had found pieces of Roman glass. By the time we had reached the temple, lunch was almost ready. We were all there but Ken, who was still mounting a search for a massive specimen of porphyry. Tamer was gently pointing him to pieces that were within reasonable distance of the roads.
Lunch had to wait for Ken; after all he was the one paying for it. On a rocky outcropping below the temple Tamer set up a buffet. There was bread, tuna fish, cream cheese, tomatoes, oranges, bananas and potato chips. Afterwards a plate of hard candy was set out.
After lunch we headed back home to the Sultan Bey hotel. The ride was every bit as bumpy, but we were satisfied. When we returned home we walked around the surroundings a bit, long enough to touch the Red Sea with our hands. We purchased a box, a fish and a vase at a nearby tourist shop.
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