Djara Cave

Djara Cave lies on the Abu Muhariq plateau in the Western Desert, roughly halfway between Assiut in the Nile Valley and the Farafra Oasis. It is a limestone cave full of stalactites and stalagmites, and on its walls are prehistoric engravings of animals and people made by people who lived in the area thousands of years ago, when the Sahara was wetter than it is today.

Discovery and research

The German explorer Gerhard Rohlfs reached the cave on Christmas Eve 1873, during his expedition from Assiut to Farafra. An Egyptian caravan leader showed his party the way, and Rohlfs gave the place the name Djara in his account of the journey, noting that the ground around it was covered with flint chips. After that the cave was largely forgotten in Europe until the German desert traveller Carlo Bergmann found it again in 1989 and reported stone tools near the entrance and animal pictures on a stalagmite.

From 1990 archaeologists from the Heinrich Barth Institute of the University of Cologne studied the cave and its surroundings, and from 1995 the work continued within a long-running German research project on climate and culture in arid Africa. Excavations at open-air sites nearby produced radiocarbon dates of roughly 8,600 to 6,000 years ago (uncalibrated), showing that people came back to this area again and again during the wetter mid-Holocene.

The cave and its rock art

The cave is entered down a steep, sandy slope from a shallow hollow in the plateau. Inside, the floor is mostly soft sand and the roof hangs with dripstone formations. These grew in far older and wetter periods; today there is too little rain for them to grow.

The engravings are in the upper part of the cave, in the area known as the Hall of the Gazelles, and on a large stalagmite. They were cut or pecked into the rock and are strongly stylised, so many animals are hard to identify. Ostriches and human figures are clear, and researchers have also recognised animals that may be oryx, addax, gazelles and ibex. The exact age of the art is not known, but the dates from the settlements around the cave suggest it belongs to the same mid-Holocene period.

In October 2026 Egypt’s environment ministry announced moves to make the cave a natural protected area.

Visiting tips

• There is no ticket office or visitor centre. Djara is visited on organised desert trips in four-wheel-drive vehicles, usually from Bahariya or Farafra and often combined with the White Desert.
• Go with a licensed operator who knows the route. Desert trips need permits, which the operator arranges, so carry your passport.
• The cave is dark. Bring a good torch, and expect a steep scramble down sand at the entrance.
• Look at the engravings without touching them, and keep off the dripstone formations.

Getting there

Djara is far from any road and town, out on the open plateau, so the only practical way to visit is with a desert tour operator. Most trips leave from Bahariya or Farafra and spend at least one night camping in the desert, often taking in the White Desert on the same journey.

Last checked November 2026. Sources: uf.phil.fau.de, uni-koeln.de, books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de, showcaves.com, egypttoday.com.