On the hill of Aghurmi, a short ride east of town, stand the ruins of the Temple of the Oracle. The 6th-century BC sanctuary was already famous across the Mediterranean when Alexander made his pilgrimage across the desert in 331 BC, after his conquest of Egypt.
The temple itself is modest — a small inner sanctuary with hieroglyphs still visible on the walls, perched at the edge of a sheer drop with views across the palm groves to Shali. Combine with the nearby Temple of Umm Ubayda, a ruined complex just below the hill that was destroyed by an Ottoman governor in 1896 who used the stones to build a police station.