Take a trip to the Valley of the Whales in Egypt to see the history of evolution

The history of ancient Egypt is brought to life by thousands of actors, from the gold-plated death mask of Tutankhamun to the mysterious Sphinx in the pyramids. But if you drive 100 miles southwest of Cairo into the vast sandy landscape of the Western Desert, you can see the clock turn back even further – to a time when Egypt was inhabited not by kings but by monsters.

Here, at the end of a long, unprotected road, lies Wadi al-Hitan, a 75-square-mile UNESCO World Heritage Site considered to be the key to one of the greatest mysteries of evolution.

You wouldn’t think so by looking at it. There is no life in this sandy valley: no houses, no trees, no water – only mile after mile of desert stretching in all directions, as endless and golden as all the riches of the pharaohs put together. After the hustle and bustle of Cairo, there is a profound silence.

Although travelers flock to see the riches of ancient Egypt in the Valley of the Kings, Wadi al-Hitan remains a largely hidden treasure. But this remote place tells a powerful story of life on Earth, buried by the literal sands of time and now brought to the surface by wind erosion and the painstaking work of paleontologists.

Fossil enthusiasts visit the valley mainly on day trips from Cairo. What they find among the sands are rocks carved into alien shapes over the millennia. Bulbous pavilions, squat rotundas and giant toadstools dot the landscape, pockmarked by the relentless wind. Between them runs a sandy path, distinguished from the rest of the desert only by the neat stones placed on its edges and the overlapping footprints of visitors.

It is one of the most arid places on Earth, and yet as hikes wind gently uphill between amazing rock formations, you can spot signs of prehistoric life: the smooth shells of molluscs can catch light; there are fossils of coin-shaped ocean creatures called nummulites to be discovered; you can even find shark teeth here.

It’s confusing what you might find in a desert 100 miles from the coast, but 40 million years ago the shape of the continents was completely different and the entire area of ​​what is now North Africa was submerged under a shallow ocean called Tethys.

There are also larger clues to this mysterious past – bone fragments strewn about like pieces of a puzzle, vertebrae the size of concrete blocks. But most dramatic and surprising is the well-preserved skeleton of a huge predator lying in the sand at the end of the path, with a spine the length of a cricket pitch and ribs splayed on either side like stumps knocked over by the spin of a bowler hat.

“When scientists first discovered this creature, they thought it was a giant marine reptile,” says Hesham Sallam, chief paleontologist at Wadi al-Hitan. “That’s why they named it Basilosaurus, which means ‘king lizard.’ Only later did they realize it was actually an ancient whale.”

Paleontologists have been discovering prehistoric whales here for over a century. About 1,000 individuals have been identified, making it the largest whale graveyard on Earth and one of the most important paleontological sites. Therefore, in a nod to the more famous burial site in Egypt – the Valley of the Kings – it was named Wadi al-Hitan, the Valley of the Whales.

Among the sands you can explore more than a dozen whale skeletons, all identified as prehistoric basilosaurus or dorudon. They have been dated to be approximately 37–40 million years old, meaning they lived during the late Eocene period. Their remains, arranged like an open-air exhibition, are connected by paths that visitors can follow around each of them.

Discovering bones is fascinating, but they are also essential to understanding one of the strangest stories of evolution – and the key to this can be found in a small underground museum in Wadi al-Hitan.

Here, alongside a pair of meter-long Basilosaurus skulls baring terrifying teeth, lies this monster’s most astonishing (and strangely comical) feature: a pair of tiny hind legs, along with femurs, shins, ankles, and matchstick feet.

“When you think about it, it’s strange that whales are air-breathing mammals but they live in the ocean,” Sallam explains. “Scientists hypothesized that they must have originated on land, but later ended up in the water and evolved into the giants we know today, losing their legs in the process. But for decades they had no proof.”

These leg bones, discovered in 1989, are a key link in this transformation. They are tiny, no larger than a human arm, and attached to this six-ton ​​whale would be incapable of walking. However, they are clear evidence that whales actually once lived on land, but abandoned their terrestrial lifestyle to return to the ocean.

“It’s like being able to see evolution with your naked eye and touch it with your hand,” Sallam says. “You have to be careful where you walk because there are fossils everywhere and you never know what new discovery might be hidden under your feet.”