The quasi-oasis of Wadi Natrun , just off the Desert Road between Cairo and Alexandria, takes its name - and oasis stature - from deposits of natron salts, the main ingredient in ancient mummifications. Wadi Natrun's most enduring legacy, however, is its monasteries , which date back to the dawn of Christian monasticism, and have provided spiritual leadership for Egypt's Copts for the last 1500 years. Their fortified exteriors, necessary in centuries past to resist Bedouin raiders, cloak what are today very forward-looking, purposeful monastic establishments. Coptic monasticism experienced a revival during the 1980s, twenty years after an English writer dismissed the monasteries as "of little interest except to the specialist".

 

The area surrounding Wadi Natrun is known as Liberation Province ( Mudiriyat el-Tahrir). In the 1950s, model villages, olive groves and vineyards were planted here to reclaim 25,000 hectares of land from the desert, a project initially financed by the sale of King Farouk's stamp collection and other valuables. The soil is potentially fertile, but lacks water; hitherto, the main springs and lakes in Wadi Natrun have been saline. Land reclamation has turned the desert green for much of the way along the road to Alex, with ranks of saplings receding up to the horizon. To the east of the highway, a whole new conurbation, MEDINET SADAT (Sadat City), represents Egypt's aspirations for the 21st century: a dormitory suburb, science park and film studio rolled into one. On the other side of the highway, motels have sprung up around the turn-off for Wadi Natrun, which runs via the ramshackle township of BIR HOOKER (named after Mr Hooker, an early manager of the Egyptian Salt & Soda Co.) into the Natrun Valley.