Innovation No. 58 of 77 in the book
Tourist Graffiti
Visitors carved their names into ancient monuments
- When
- c. 1250 BCE
- Dynasty
- 19th Dynasty
- Era
- New Kingdom
The urge to scrawl ‘I was here’ at a famous site is ancient — and the oldest tourist graffiti we can read is Egyptian, from around 1250 BCE.
By the New Kingdom, the pyramids were already 1,000-year-old monuments, and Egyptians visited them as tourists. A scribe named Hadnakht left a note admiring the ‘beautiful’ temple of kings long dead.
They signed their names, praised the view, and dated their visit — exactly what people carve into monuments today.
The world’s first ‘I was here’ was scratched by an Egyptian sightseer.
The evidence is hieratic graffiti covering walls of the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara and the pyramids at Dahshur, written by New Kingdom scribes between roughly 1400 and 1200 BCE — visitors to Old Kingdom monuments that were already more than a thousand years old when they arrived. Some wrote in black ink, others scratched lightly into the limestone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who were these visitors?
Literate Egyptians: scribes travelling on official business or as religious pilgrims, who went out of their way to see the ruins. Their writing survives because they were among the few who could write at all.
Did they leave more than signatures?
Often. Hadnakht, at the Step Pyramid around 1250 BCE under Ramesses II, left something closer to a review — praising the monument and the kings long dead who built it.