In the Fayoum, as for the whole of Egypt, memories are counted in thousands of years. More centuries have passed between the construction of the Pyramid of Hawarah and the departure of the last centurion commanding the fort of Dionysias than between this retreat, around 350 AD, and the day on which you might visit the ruins of the Roman stronghold.
Pierre Gazio invites us to wander through these memories and the countryside that holds them, away from the well-beaten tourist tracks of Upper Egypt. Here, the remains of temples, towns and villages have the charm of ruins almost forgotten, realms of the imagination.
This book, lavishly illustrated with specially commissioned photographs by Raymond Collet, is designed as a stroll, made up of digressions and of fortuitous, unexpected encounters.
Whether on the spot or from the comfort of an armchair, one can wander alone like travellers of a bygone era whose musings were troubled only by the sudden soaring of a bird or the scurrying of a jackal.