Some 100 km southwest of Hurghada, deep in the Eastern Desert, lie the granite quarries the Romans called Mons Claudianus. The grey granodiorite quarried here — known as granito del foro in Italian — went into the columns of the Pantheon, the Forum of Trajan and Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. The site is far better preserved than most: the workers' settlement with its barracks and bath house is largely intact, a temple of Serapis stands roofless on the slope, and unfinished column drums still lie scattered along the wadi where they were abandoned when the quarry was shut around 250 CE.
Like Mons Porphyrites, getting here needs a 4×4 and a guide. Hurghada operators sometimes combine both quarries in a single long desert day; the drive alone is spectacular.