The Most Mystical Places in Egypt
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most mystical places in Egypt are Giza pyramid complex, Valley of the Kings and Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa. The list covers 5 mystical places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Ancient Egypt devoted its greatest effort to eternity. The belief that the dead journeyed on to another life produced pyramids, painted tombs and underground galleries, and the dry desert preserved them for thousands of years. Later Greek and Roman Egypt kept the tradition alive, and even the Red Sea coast has its own deep, dark mystery.
The Giza pyramid complex, built for the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. The Valley of the Kings near Luxor hides the rock-cut tombs of New Kingdom pharaohs, including Tutankhamun. The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa in Alexandria blend Egyptian gods with Roman dress and Greek decoration underground. The Blue Hole near Dahab drops from a coral reef into deep blue water, and the Serapeum of Saqqara lines its galleries with enormous stone sarcophagi made for the sacred Apis bulls.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Giza pyramid complex | Necropolis | |
| 2 | Valley of the Kings | Archaeological site | ✓ |
| 3 | Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa | Catacombs | |
| 4 | Blue Hole | Blue hole | |
| 5 | Serapeum of Saqqara | Catacombs |
01 Giza pyramid complex
Egypt · 6.7 km from Giza29.976° N 31.133° E
Ricardo Liberato · CC BY-SA 2.0 The Giza plateau, on the edge of the Western Desert above modern Giza, holds the most famous group of monuments on Earth: the pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, the Great Sphinx, and the temples, causeways and cemeteries that served them. All were built during Egypt's Fourth Dynasty, roughly 2600 to 2500 BC.
Did you know? The three great pyramids are aligned to the cardinal directions with an error of only about one-fifteenth of a degree.
02 Valley of the Kings
Egypt · 6.5 km from Luxor25.740° N 32.602° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Freiheitsjunkie from Pixabay For nearly five centuries, from about 1539 to 1075 BC, the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried not under pyramids but in tombs cut deep into a dry valley on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes, modern Luxor. The valley lies beneath al-Qurn, a pyramid-shaped peak that may have been part of its appeal, and its hidden entrances were meant to defeat the robbers who had emptied the older royal tombs.
Did you know? Workmen who cut and painted the royal tombs lived in the nearby village of Deir el-Medina, and their records include what may be history's first documented labour strike.
03 Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa
Egypt · 4.5 km from Alexandria31.187° N 29.905° E
Asiatologist · CC BY-SA 4.0 The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa are the largest Roman-era burial complex in Egypt and one of the strangest: a tomb where Egyptian gods wear Roman armour. Cut into the bedrock of Alexandria in the second century AD, they lay forgotten until 1900, when, as the story goes, a donkey fell through the ground into the access shaft.
Did you know? Side panels in the main tomb show the sacred Apis bull receiving offerings, beside the central scene of Anubis embalming the dead.
04 Blue Hole
Egypt28.572° N 34.537° E
S. Ellermann · CC BY-SA 3.0 A few kilometres north of Dahab, on the Sinai coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, the fringing reef opens into a near-circular shaft of dark blue water. The Blue Hole is a submarine sinkhole more than 100 metres deep, cut off from the open sea on the surface by a shallow lip of reef about 6 metres down, known as the Saddle.
Did you know? Trained freedivers swim through the Arch on a single breath, passing beneath a rock ceiling that lies about 55 metres below the surface.
05 Serapeum of Saqqara
Egypt · 15.1 km from Giza29.875° N 31.212° E
No machine-readable author provided. Neithsabes assumed (based on copyright claims). · Public domain Deep under the desert at Saqqara runs a corridor lined with enormous stone boxes, each cut from a single block of granite or basalt and big enough to hold a bull. This is the Serapeum, the burial place of the Apis bulls, sacred animals of the god Ptah at Memphis, the old capital of Egypt.
Did you know? Herodotus wrote that an Apis bull had to be black, with a white triangle on its brow, an eagle shape on its back and a knot under its tongue.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most mystical places in Egypt?
- On our list, Giza pyramid complex ranks first, followed by Valley of the Kings and Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa.
- What was buried in the Serapeum of Saqqara?
- The Serapeum held the burials of the Apis bulls, sacred animals worshipped as a form of the god Ptah. Their massive granite sarcophagi still stand in the underground galleries.
- When was Tutankhamun's tomb discovered?
- Howard Carter found it in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922. It was the most intact royal tomb ever found in Egypt.
- How deep is the Blue Hole in Dahab?
- The sinkhole is more than 100 metres deep. About 55 metres down, a tunnel known as the Arch connects it to the open sea.
- How many mystical places are on this list in Egypt?
- The list covers 5 mystical places.