Dayr Al-Hajar

dayr al-hajar (Monastery of Stone). Six miles (10 km) to the north of the oasis of Dakhlah, which is about 130 miles (200 km) from Khargah, are the ruins of a temple of the Ptolemaic period that the inhabitants call Dayr al-Hajar, although there is no evidence that Christian hermits or monks were once there. The first to have pointed it out appears to have been G. Rohlfs (1875, pp. 339-40). It was also mentioned by H. King (1925). O. Meinardus described it briefly (1965, pp. 346-47; 1977, pp. 448-49).