Heather on her travels

A sci-fi film set or lunar landscape? The Shali in Siwa Oasis, Egypt – video

Posted: 17 Oct 2011 08:56 AM PDT

Sometimes when I travel I come across a place that is so cinematic or downright wierd that I think it could be the perfect location for a sci-fi movie – Star Wars or perhaps James Bond. I feel sure that the Shali, a ruined fortified town in Siwa oasis in Egypt, would make an excellent film backdrop – perhaps Dr Who’s Tardis will be landing there in the next series.

The Shali in Siwa in Egypt

Picture an honeycomb of close built houses, each one built by hand with mud bricks strengthened by local salt rock known as karsheef, with plenty of alleyways and hidden courtyards where women could relax with their families without having to be veiled from prying eyes. This was once a fortress with only one gate in, where the Siwi people could feel protected from raiders from the desert and unwelcome outsiders were kept outside the walls.

I hope you enjoy the video below with a panorama from the ruined Shali fortress in Siwa, Egypt

If you can’t see the video from the Shali in Siwa, Egypt below, view it on my blog here

The Shali was built up from the 13th century onward and the buildings were originally several stories high, but now you can only see the outlines of the broken down walls, creating something of a lunar landscape. The original town of Siwa was probably located close to the site of the Temple of the Oracle, but due to attacks from Nomadic tribes, it was decided to move the town or ‘Shali’ in Siwi language, to a safer location on the hill. In this century, families started to move to more modern houses and in 1926 three days of constant rain damaged many of the houses beyond repair.

The Shali in Siwa in Egypt

Climb to the top of the Shali and you get the view all around the oasis – it’s one of the high points of Siwa, the others being the Temple of the Oracle and Gebel al-Mawta or the Mountain of the dead, which you can see like a big, dried out cow pat behind me in the picture. From here you can view the endless date palm plantations, with the odd square of blue-green of a walled spring that is used for irrigation and sometimes for swimming and beyond them just desert for hundreds of miles.