A little to the north of Qasr el-Zayyan, is the magnificent hilltop fortress of Qasr el-Ghueita, which like the former site also contains a temple. The Arabic name of the mudbrick Roman fortress means ‘fortress of the small garden’, evidence that it was once part of a thriving agricultural community.

Long before the Romans came to Egypt, this settlement was called Per-Ousekh and is thought to have existed from at least as early as the Middle Kingdom, when it was famous for its wine. Texts in the New Kingdom tombs of the nobles at Thebes describe the excellent quality of the grapes from the vineyards of Per-Ousekh. Grape-harvest scenes often accompany the desert hunt rather than other scenes of food production, perhaps suggesting that grapes were grown for wine in the desert oases in preference to the Nile Valley. Wine from the oases was favoured by the royal courts.

The fortress which dominates the hilltop at Qasr el-Ghueita may once have served as a headquarters for the garrisons of Roman troops who guarded the desert routes and numerous mudbrick buildings are contained within the high fortified walls. Little is known at present about the Roman occupation here. The village which once occupied the slopes below the fortress can be seen in the scattered remains of ruined houses and there is some evidence that the area was inhabited even in prehistoric times.

A yellow sandstone temple within the Roman walls measures 10.5m by 23.5m and occupies about one-fifth of the space within the fortress. Its earliest parts are thought to date to the reigns of Ahmose II (Amasis) of the Persian Dynasty XXVII and Darius I of Dynasty XXVIII, though it was possibly begun by the Nubian rulers of Dynasty XXV on the site of an earlier sacred structure. The temple, dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, Mut and Khons, is entered through a sandstone gate on the southern side of the enclosure walls. A pronaos with screen walls was constructed by Ptolemy III in a courtyard which fronts the temple. This leads to a hypostyle hall, richly decorated in Ptolemaic style with scenes of Nile gods holding nome symbols in the lower registers and with exquisite capitals on top of four columns. Decoration in the extant temple contains the names of Ptolemy III (Euergetes I), Ptolemy IV (Philopator) and Ptolemy X (Alexander I). There is no suggestion of earlier decoration but it is thought that this hall may have been constructed by Ahmose II. Beyond the hypostyle is an offering chamber with a staircase to the roof, from where the visitor can get a birds-eye view of the interior of the fortress and the surrounding countryside. To the rear of the offering room are three parallel sanctuaries for the cult statues of the Theban triad, with the largest, the sanctuary of Amun, on the right-hand side. These walls too are decorated but blackened by smoke and age. To the south-east of the main temple building, within the enclosure, is the columned screen façade of another stone structure which may have been a birth-house. In front of the gate there is a processional platform.

Visited by 19th century travellers and excavated by Ahmed Fakhry in 1972, the temple has undergone more recent excavations by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities which are not yet published.

The imposing fortress of Qasr el-Ghueita can be found 3km to the east of the main road and about 18km south of the city of el-Kharga, on the crest of a sandstone hill from where it commands a strategic view over the desert plain.