 A number of texts written on broken pottery (ostraca) have been discovered at the site.Mons Claudianus lies in the Eastern desert of upper Egypt, and was discovered in 1823 by Wilkinson and Burton.It lies north of Luxor, between the Egyptian town of Qena on the Nile and Hurghada on the Red Sea, 500 km south of Cairo and 120 km east of the Nile, at an altitude of c.700m in the heart of the Red Sea Mountains.