Wadi Maghara is located in the southwest of the Sinai Peninsula to the east of Abu Rudeis on the coast road and just to the north of Wadi Feiran. Several rock faces in the wadi have relief inscriptions of early rulers of Egypt which document their expeditions to mine the precious minerals, primarily turquoise and copper, found in the area. These minerals were brought down from the gebel on an ancient track which still exists today, to the port of Markha to be transported by boat into Egypt. Turquoise was especially precious because it was used in jewellery and statuary in ancient Egypt. The mines at Wadi Maghara were a profitable source of turquoise and copper until at least the New Kingdom.

Although there is evidence for sporadic Egyptian involvement in exploiting the minerals of Sinai since Predynastic times, the earliest king attested at Wadi Maghara is the Dynasty III ruler, Djoser Netjerikhet, owner of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. His organised mining activity there is considered to be one of most significant developments of the king's reign. Djoser's successor Sekhemkhet continued the expeditions to Sinai and a famous rock-cut inscription found on a cliff above the valley shows the king wearing a white crown and smiting a Bedouin captive. This inscription was originally attributed to Semerkhet of Dynasty I, but later found to be that of Sekhemkhet after his pyramid was found at Saqqara in the 1950s. The inscription was first discovered by the British explorer Palmer in 1868. When WM Flinders Petrie visited Sinai in 1904-5 he found no fewer than twelve reliefs in the Wadi Maghara.

Another king to leave evidence at Wadi Maghara was Sanakht, whose position in Dynasty III is still unclear. Relatively little is known about Sanakht, except that he seems to have been buried in a large mud-brick tomb at Beit Khallaf, north of Abydos in Upper Egypt. The most significant monument attributable to Sanakht is the pair of rock-cut inscriptions here - one showing the king wearing the white crown preceded by the standard of Wepwewet and in the other the king wears a red crown and stands in the pose of smiting a captive (now lost). The king's Horus name is depicted in a serekh and a fragment of vertical inscription accompanying the scene contains the oldest known reference to Turquoise (mefkat).

The name given to the Wadi Maghara in later inscriptions is 'the turquoise terraces'. The main seam of turquoise-bearing rock lay about half-way up the cliff and the workings consisted of galleries with a small opening on the cliff face. Other Old Kingdom rulers whose names appear in the wadi are Khufu, Snefru, Sahure, Nyuserre and Menkauhor.

Inscriptions of the Middle Kingdom ruler Amenemhet III, who contributed to the construction of the temple at Serabit el-Khadim can also be found here. From the New Kingdom there is evidence of an expedition sent by Tuthmose III.

The history of Wadi Maghara goes right back to prehistoric times, but the place is most important to us today for its documentation of the Pharaonic mining expeditions dispatched by the early rulers to this 'foreign' land. Not only the agents of the kings, but the mining chiefs and even the labourers were eager to write stories of their victories and their hardships on the rocks. Some of the reliefs remain on the rocks of the wadi, others are now in various museums but many have been damaged by later attempts at mining.