Matruh

Matruh lies on Egypt's northwestern Mediterranean coast, where a sheltered harbor interrupts a long stretch of arid shoreline. Seafarers visited the anchorage from the Late Bronze Age. In the Hellenistic period the place was called Paraitonion, and under Roman rule Paraetonium grew around a harbor in the western lagoon. Classical accounts place Alexander the Great here on his journey westward to the oracle of Amun at Siwa.