Abu Mena
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How it came to be
Menas, a martyr of Alexandria, is said to have died in 296. According to legend, the camel carrying his body stopped in the desert beyond Lake Mareotis, and he was buried there. A shepherd later found the tomb when a sick sheep was healed at the spot.
A town grew over the tomb and flourished as a Christian pilgrimage centre from the 5th to the 7th century. At its heart stood a baptistery and two churches, with a tomb church over the saint's cave, baths, workshops, cisterns and pilgrims' hostels. Pilgrims took home small flasks, the Menas ampullae. The town was destroyed in the Muslim conquest of the mid-7th century.
Abu Mena was inscribed in 1979. Irrigation of nearby farmland raised the water table, and the site was placed on the danger list in 2001. After drainage works and monitoring it was removed from the list in 2025.
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