HAUNTED PLACES IN EGYPT

The Great Pyramids

A haunted pyramid? Yes, of course! Many eye witness reports have recorded a man and his three children, dressed in clothes typical of the 1920s, roaming around the Great Pyramids looking for something. As we are telling a ghost story here, we’re going to assume that he’s searching for his wife and mother of his children.

The much creepier story surrounding the haunting of the pyramids is the emergence of the ghost of Pharaoh Khufu himself who is the proud owner of one of them. Dressed in traditional ancient Egyptian armor, he appears at midnight and walks the streets, visiting houses and telling their inhabitants to leave the area. If ghosts have unfinished business to linger around, Khufu has been very patient for many millennia now.

The Valley Of The Kings

Hosting a few hundred dead Pharaohs for the past 5000 years, the rumour that the Valley of the Kings is haunted should come as a surprise to no one. A pharaoh in a chariot has been seen roaming the valley as well as perceptions of strange noises such as footsteps, screams and shuffling without a source. Watchmen believe these are the spirits of the deceased whose tombs have been desecrated. Now they are looking for their treasures which are, largely, crammed in the Egyptian Museum a few hundred miles away.

On top of that, the “Mummy’s curse” has made Tutankhamun’s gravesite a creepy place. Upon financing the discovery of the site, Lord Carnarvon died before he could harvest the fruits of his investment due to an infected mosquito bite on his neck. The later inspection of Tutankhamun found a similar wound on the young Pharaoh. Howard Carter, the archaeologist who found the site, died due to chemicals used in the chamber after it was discovered. Hence, his greatest discovery was also his doom, spreading more superstition over the apparent curse on the tomb. These accounts are super scary albeit highly controversial.

Baron Empain’s Palace

The history of the Baron’s Palace is haunting in and of itself, however, the old Heliopolis gem is believed to be subject to a quite literal haunting. Neighbours witness the building’s windows open and close at will and lights in rooms, despite the house having been abandoned for many years. Initially believed to be a go-to address for orgies and Satanic meetings, the palace is now closed to the public.

Baron Empain’s story reads like a horror novel. After his widespread infidelity, his wife died in the palace after falling down the impressive spiral staircase of the main building. Having suffered from mental illness, his daughter passed away just a few years later. Her condition had made her sit in the basement for days at a time. A secret corridor beneath the building is said to lead to the Baron’s final resting place adjacent to the Basilica. Who knows, maybe it’s the Baron’s ghost himself who is still haunting the premises?

Farafra, Egypt

The Farafra depression is the second biggest depression by size in Western Egypt and the smallest by population, near latitude 27.06° North and longitude 27.97° East. It is in the large Western Desert of Egypt, approximately mid-way between Dakhla and Bahariya oases.

Farafra has an estimated 5,000 inhabitants (2002) mainly living in the town of Farafra and is mostly inhabited by the localBedouins. Parts of the town have complete quarters of traditional architecture, simple, smooth, unadorned, all in mud colour — local culture and traditional methods of building and carrying out repairs have been supported by its tourism. Often grouped within Farafra are the hot springs at Bir Sitta (the sixth well) and the El-Mufid lake.

A main geographic attraction of Farafra is its White Desert  a national park of Egypt and 45 km (28 mi) north of the town of Farafra, the main draw of which is its rock type colored from snow-white to cream. It has massive chalk rock formations that are text-book examples of ventifact and which have been created as a result of occasional sandstorm in the area. The Farafra desert is a typical place visited by some schools in Egypt, as a location for camping trips. The desert was also the featured location in the music video accompanying the piece Echoes in the 2008–2011 album by the Klaxons.

"Jasrmmd road, and the locally developed clays at the top of the white chalk west of Qasr Farafra. As Zittel placed the beds at the former place below the White Chalk, this new position assigned to them may be regarded as provisional until confirmed or disproved by palaeontological evidence derived from the latter locality