Reach the editorial office in Asyut directly.
A real person reads every message that arrives through this page. Most enquiries are answered inside one Egyptian working day. The form below is the fastest route; the postal address, phone and direct email are listed underneath in case you need to write outside the form.
Four channels, in order of how quickly they get answered.
The fastest reply window is by email or through this form. Phone enquiries are answered during office hours by Hisham El-Bahnasawi, who runs the desk. Postal mail is opened on Sundays.
- Email. [email protected] — replied to inside one working day, in English or Arabic.
- Phone. +20 88 2241 736 — Sunday to Thursday, 09:00–16:00 Cairo time (UTC+2).
- Post. Verdi Heritage Studies L.L.C., 23 El-Walidiyya Street, Asyut 71511, Egypt. Mail is opened on Sundays.
- In person. Office visits by appointment only; the building does not have a public street-level entrance. Email first.
Three short answers that save a round of email.
A high share of the messages we receive are about three recurring topics. If your enquiry falls into one of these, the short answer below may already cover it.
Can you arrange a permit for restricted sites such as Meir or the Akhmim site store?
No. The archive does not broker permits. What we can do is tell you which inspector at the relevant SCA office handles the permit, the typical reply window, and the documents they will ask for. Subscribers at Library and Field tiers receive this contact sheet automatically; non-subscribers can ask the same in a single one-off email.
Will you recommend a tour operator for a Middle Egypt trip?
We do not publish a recommended-operator list and we do not take affiliate referrals. We do keep a private shortlist of licensed independent guides who have worked with our editors over the last few years; the list is shared with Library and Field subscribers on request, with no commercial relationship on our side.
Can I reuse text or images from the public site files?
Short factual reuse with a clear citation is fine. Wholesale reuse of a page, or any use of photographs taken by the editors, requires a written licence from the desk. Educational use under a stated programme licence is granted at no charge; commercial reuse is quoted case by case.
Do you accept guest contributions?
Yes, by invitation. The contributor bench rotates on a two-year cycle and new contributors are usually invited after a published academic piece on a Middle Egypt topic catches an editor's eye. Unsolicited pitches are read but seldom result in commissions; we have no editorial budget for speculative work.
The office is two kilometres east of the Asyut Museum.
El-Walidiyya is a residential and small-business district immediately south of the railway line. The building is a 1970s concrete five-storey block; the archive office occupies a single floor on the third level. There is no public reception. Visitors arrive by appointment and ring the office line on arrival.
From Cairo by train, the trip is approximately six and a half hours on the morning express. From Cairo by road it is roughly four hundred kilometres on the desert motorway, comfortable as a single day's drive. From Luxor by road, four hours; the train from Luxor to Asyut takes between four and five hours depending on the timetable in operation. The local airport in Asyut handles a small number of domestic flights and is sometimes the fastest route in for visitors coming from outside Cairo.
For visitors who want to see the Asyut Museum on the same day, the museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 09:00–13:00 and 17:00–21:00 in the summer schedule, with shorter hours in winter. The current opening times are listed on the Assiut Museum file.