From the last of the Seven Wonders of the World left standing to a presidential gaffe that inspired a huge new project, these are only a few of the incredible historical places worth exploring in Egypt. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn about these pyramids, temples, and houses.

　　Earlier versions of the descriptions of these buildings first appeared in 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die, edited by Mark Irving (2016). Writers’ names appear in parentheses.

　　Though there are many mastabas (flat-roofed, mud-brick, rectangular buildings used as burial tombs) and 17 pyramids in the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Sakkara, the most notable building is the Step Pyramid of the Third Dynasty pharaoh Djoser, sometimes spelled Zoser. The Step Pyramid is the oldest complete, hewn-stone building known. It was designed by Imhotep, the first architect and physician known by name in written history. He is thought to have been responsible for the first known use of columns in architecture, and he is recognized as the founder of Egyptian medicine.

　　When constructing the Step Pyramid of Djoser, Imhotep enlarged the basic mastaba structure to make it square. He then built similar mastaba-like square blocks of stone on top of the first course in ever-decreasing size to arrive at the final, impressive, stepped shape. The casing blocks are set at an angle to take up the thrust of the successive layers. The pyramid has six terraces and measures around 203 feet (62 m) high. Most of its outer casing and part of its masonry have disappeared over the centuries. The pyramid’s eastern side is the most intact. It is thought that the original surface was encased in smooth white limestone, or polished white marble, which would have meant the structure caught the rays of the sun and reflected its rays to dramatic effect. At the heart of the pyramid, 92 feet (28 m) underground, lies the royal burial chamber. A vertical shaft leads to the tomb, the entrance of which was originally sealed with a three-ton slab of granite. (Carol King)

　　Bibliotheca AlexandrinaThe idea of rebuilding the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was first launched in 1974 after visiting U.S. President Richard Nixon asked to see the ancient Library of Alexandria—which had disappeared some two millennia earlier. His gaffe prompted one of the truly grand public projects of the 20th century.

　　Won in competition by the young Norwegian-based architectural and design office of Snøhetta, the funding came from patrons as diverse as UNESCO, the country of France, and Saddam Hussein. From afar it looks like an obliquely tilted solar disk. A grill of aluminum panels functions like the mashrabyyra screens over the windows of traditional Egyptian houses, with deftly incised north-facing clerestories that allow in daylight without glare.

　　While the overall form of the library appears to be a partially sunken cylindrical volume, it is actually a more complex geometry: the section of a doughnut-shaped torus. The magnificent reading room beneath the disk is structured like a hypostyle hall, with more than 90 slender concrete columns that rise to a maximum height of 138 feet (42 m). At its opening, in 2001, it became the largest research institution in the Middle East, and it was built to hold eight million volumes. There are constantly changing perspectives as one moves through the seven levels of the vast room. The enchanting play of natural light filtering into the interior, highlighted by rays from green-and-blue glass bricks embedded in ceiling’s structural grid, is conducive to metaphysical reflection. (Richard Ingersoll)

　　Mausoleum of the Aga KhanOne of the most visited monuments in Aswan is the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, a small square building with turrets at its corners and a fanned staircase leading to the entrance. Inside, housed under a domed structure, lies a tomb carved from one piece of white Carrara marble. The building‘s popularity lies not only in its simple architectural beauty—the pink granite structure appears to glow at sunset—but in the love story that led to its being built, and the esteem with which the late Aga Khan III is held within the Islamic world. Three years before his death, in 1957, Aga Khan III chose the spot as his resting place. His third wife, French-born Princess Yvonne Aga Khan, known as the Begum, was given the task of building the mausoleum. After consulting a British professor of Islamic architecture, a friend of her husband’s, she took Cairo’s Fatmid Giushi mosque and its mihrab (a niche in the wall of a mosque) as her inspiration. She also chose a young architect, Fareed El-Shafei. The mausoleum was completed in 1959 and her husband laid to rest there 16 months after he died. After the Aga Khan’s death, the Begum stayed at her nearby house for six months of each year, when she placed a rose on her husband’s tomb every day until she died in 2000. (Carol King)

　　Mosque of Aḥmad ibn ṬūlūnThe monumental Mosque of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn is one of the few remnants from the classical Islamic period, when Abbasid caliphs ruled the Islamic world from their capital Samarra in Iraq. The governor who built the mosque declared his independence in 868 and founded the short-lived Ṭūlūnid Dynasty. When the Abbasids reconquered Egypt in 905, they left nothing standing save for Ibn Ṭūlūn. Over the centuries the mosque—Cairo’s oldest, having been completed in 879—has served as a caravanserai, or travelers’ inn, as well as a hideout for body snatchers.

　　The complex consists of a mosque surrounded by an enclosure. On all but its qibla side (the one facing Mecca), there are narrow enclosed wings, or ziyadas. The ziyadas protect the sanctified inner space and lead into the immense courtyard where 13 pointed arches distinguish every side of the mosque. The northern ziyada contains a helix-shaped minaret with a Babylonian ziggurat-influenced spiraling external staircase. Inside the mosque the mihrab (prayer niche) of the prayer hall is flanked by two columns with perforated capitals. Behind the qibla wall was the Dar al-Imara giving access to the maqsura, a private area used by the caliph and his close circle during Friday prayers. A sycamore-wood frieze runs around the inner arches and the Kufic calligraphy running above it retells one-fifth of the Qurʾān. (Anna Amari-Parker)

　　Temple of HatshepsutQueen Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. She founded a vast number of buildings during her reign, the most spectacular of which is her own funerary temple at Deir el-Bahari, a site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor. It is positioned in a straight line from the tomb she commissioned for herself in the Valley of the Kings that lies on the other side of the mountain. Archaeologists estimate that it took 15 years to build the temple.

　　The focal point of the temple is the Djeser-Djeseru, or “The Sublime of Sublimes,” which consists of three elegant colonnaded terraces standing 97 feet (29.5 m) high and dramatically built into a high mountain face that rises above it. It is notable for its perfect symmetry, which predates Greece’s Parthenon by 1,000 years. Djeser-Djeseru is reached by two ascending ramps that were once planted as gardens. The second ramp leads to the upper terrace and the Punt Portico, which is supported by two rows of square columns. Queen Hatsheput appears in the portico in statue form, sculpted to appear as the god Osiris. (Carol King)

　　Hamdi Seif al-Nasr Rest HouseBuilt in 1942 and expanded in 1945, the Hamdi Seif al-Nasr Rest House is a family home in Al-Fayyūm. It is the work of one of Egypt’s most important architects, Hassan Fathy. Fathy was an Islamic Revivalist who advocated the adaptation of existing Egyptian Mamluk, Cairene, and Nubian styles. He pioneered the use of elements such as the malkaf (windcatcher), shukshaykha (lantern dome), and mashrabiya (wooden lattice screen), which he combined with mud-brick construction for distinctive, economical, and environmentally friendly structures in keeping with tradition. His promotion of this type of mud-brick architecture earned him the nickname the “Barefoot Architect.”

　　The house is located on a peninsula of land that lies in a lake. It was built to be used by the landlord as a weekend retreat on his visits to his estate. The building is raised up on a podium above the water level to protect it from floods, and it is accessed by a small set of steps. A square, arcaded courtyard lies at its center, and vaulted and domed private rooms, such as the dining room, are situated around it. The main vaulted space at one end of the property is left open to serve as a loggia. Typically, it has a dome raised on squinches and uses colored glass windows to serve as wind-catchers and protection against the sun. (Carol King)

　　Great Pyramid of KhufuThe Great Pyramid of Khufu is the largest and most northerly of the three famous pyramids at Giza, and the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World left standing today. As the largest pyramid ever built, it is a wonder mainly because of its sheer scale and the incredible precision with which the building work was executed.

　　It is assumed to be the burial place of Egyptian pharaoh Khufu, who ruled 2589–66 BCE, but only an empty sarcophagus has been found. Designed by Khufu’s cousin Hemon, the pyramid originally stood 482 feet (147 m) high with four equal sides each measuring 755 feet (230 m). The giant, stepped sides were originally covered with highly polished limestone casing stones. When in place, these stones, weighing some 15 tons apiece and slotted together with unerring accuracy, would have lent sheen to the structure in the sun. Some Egyptologists believe that the pinnacle of the structure may have been gilded. Inside the pyramid, the King’s Chamber contained a huge granite sarcophagus; the smaller Queen’s Chamber, a large angular doorway or niche. The other main features of the Great Pyramid are the Grand Gallery, ascending and descending passages, and the lowest part of the structure dubbed the “unfinished chamber.” (David Taylor)

　　The Luxor Temple is an ancient Egyptian temple complex that lies on the east bank of the Nile, at what is now called Luxor and what was the ancient city of Thebes. It was dedicated to the Theban triad of gods—Amun, his wife Mut, and their son Chons—and was built on the site of a smaller Middle Kingdom structure for the god Amun. The earliest parts of the temple existing today date from 1408 BCE and were built during the reign of Amenhotep III. Access to the temple is via the Avenue of Sphinxes, which once stretched the 1.86 miles (3 km) from the Luxor Temple to the Temple of Karnak in the north. A 78-foot-high (24 m) obelisk built by Ramesses II in 1300 BCE lies at the end of the avenue at the entrance to the temple. Originally there were two obelisks, but the second was given to France’s King Louis-Philippe in 1829 and now stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

　　The gateway leads into a peristyle courtyard, also built by Ramesses II. Both it and the obelisk were built at an oblique angle to the rest of the temple. The courtyard leads into a processional colonnade, 328 feet (100 m) long, built by Amenhotep III, and lined by 14 papyrus-capital columns. A second peristyle courtyard lies beyond the colonnade. The inner part of the temple is accessed via a hypostyle court with 32 columns. This inner sanctum comprises an antechamber that contains a mix of both Egyptian carvings and Roman stuccoes, reflecting the fact that at one time the Romans had also used the site as a place of worship. The temple also has a shrine dedicated to Amun and the Birth Room of Amenhotep III, which contains reliefs depicting the pharoah’s birth. (Carol King)

　　New Gourna is an uncompleted housing project in Luxor from the 1940s that was created to relocate the villagers of Old Gourna, who economically sustained their community by looting local Pharoanic tombs—much to the displeasure of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, who wanted to move the 7,000 locals away from the area. Hassan Fathy, an architect noted for his rural housing and traditional methods, was hired to design the new village on a site 50 miles (80 km) away.

　　According to Fathy’s plan, each of the five tribes of Old Gourna would live in their own zone of the new village. Large public central spaces would lead to smaller courtyards and narrow alleys would wind their way back to the private area of family home. Fathy designed an agricultural marketplace, hotel, and craft market which he hoped would give the villagers new sources of income.

　　This vision dissolved when the people of Gourna refused to move. Building ground to a halt with only a fifth of the new village complete. It was left largely uninhabited with only the mosque—the first part of the village to be built—still maintained. (Alex Brew)