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Gilf Kabir
Gilf Kebir () (var. Gilf al-Kebir, Jilf al Kabir, Gilf Kebir Plateau) is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier". This sandstone plateau, roughly the size of Puerto Rico, rises from the Libyan Desert floor. It is the true heart of the Gilf Kebir National Park. The name Gilf Kebir was given to the plateau by Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein in 1925, as it had no local name. It is known for its rugged beauty, remoteness, geological interest, and the dramatic cliff paintings-pictographs and rock carvings-petroglyphs which depict an earlier era of abundant animal life and human habitation. Geography and climate The Uweinat mountain range at the very south of the plateau extends from Egypt into Libya and Sudan. Wadis The plateau is crisscrossed by Wadis (dry, seasonal riverbeds). These include: * Wadi Hamra * Wadi Akhdar * Wadi Bakht * Wadi Dayiq * Wadi Firaq * Wadi Gazayir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip of Palestine and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northeast separates Egypt from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt, while Alexandria, the second-largest city, is an important industrial and tourist hub at the Mediterranean coast. At approximately 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the 14th-most populated country in the world. Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, ur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aridity Index
An aridity index (AI) is a numerical indicator of the degree of dryness of the climate at a given location. A number of aridity indices have been proposed (see below); these indicators serve to identify, locate or delimit regions that suffer from a deficit of available water, a condition that can severely affect the effective use of the land for such activities as agriculture or stock-farming. Historical background and indices Köppen At the turn of the 20th century, Wladimir Köppen and Rudolf Geiger developed the concept of a climate classification where arid regions were defined as those places where the annual rainfall accumulation (in centimetres) is less than R/2, where: * R=2\times T if rainfall occurs mainly in the cold season, * R=2\times T+14 if rainfall is evenly distributed throughout the year, and * R=2\times T+28 if rainfall occurs mainly in the hot season. where T is the mean annual temperature in Celsius. This was one of the first attempts at defining an arid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Humid Period
The African humid period (AHP) (also known by other names) is a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today. The covering of much of the Sahara desert by grasses, trees and lakes was caused by changes in Earth's orbit around the Sun; changes in vegetation and dust in the Sahara which strengthened the African monsoon; and increased greenhouse gases. During the preceding Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara contained extensive dune fields and was mostly uninhabited. It was much larger than today, but its lakes and rivers such as Lake Victoria and the White Nile were either dry or at low levels. The humid period began about 14,600–14,500 years ago at the end of Heinrich event 1, simultaneously to the Bølling–Allerød warming. Rivers and lakes such as Lake Chad formed or expanded, glaciers grew on Mount Kilimanjaro and the Sahara retreated. Two major dry fluctuations occurred; during the Youn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Art
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are: * cave paintings, * petroglyphs, which are carved or scratched into the rock surface, * sculpted rock reliefs, and * geoglyphs, which are formed on the ground. The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having been found in Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Anthropologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance. The archaeological sub-discipline of rock art studies first developed in the late-19th century among Francophone scholar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jebel Arkenu
Mount Arkanu or Jabal Arkanu (also Jebel Arkenu or Gebel Árchenu) is a mountain in Libya. Geography The mountain is located in the Libyan Desert in the Kufra District of Libya, about 300 km southeast of El Tag.Bertarelli (1929), p. 515 and about 70 km west of Arkanu and the two Arkenu structures. Its height is , rising about 500 m above the surrounding Gilf Kebir plateau and a valley-oasis. Mount Arkanu is long and wide.Google Earth Arkanu's existence has been known since 1892 through Arab sources. Arkanu was first discovered in 1923 by Ahmed Hassanein. The mountain consists of intrusive granite. The valley is 15 km long and oriented east-west. The valley has a green environment consisting of bushes, grass and some trees. Arkanu is used as a pasture. Each year the Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Meso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sahara
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Cave Of Beasts
The Cave of the Beasts (also named ''Foggini-Mestikawi Cave'' or ''Foggini Cave'' or ''Cave Wadi Sura II'') is a huge natural rock shelter in the Western Desert (Egypt), Western Desert of Geography of Egypt, Egypt featuring Neolithic rock paintings, more than 7,000 years old, with about 5,000 figures. Geographical location The shelter is located in the Wadi Sura at the south-western foot of the Gilf Kabir, Gilf Kebir Mountains in the remote south-western corner of Egypt, Egypt’s New Valley Governorate near the border of Libya and Sudan. The area, abandoned in the present day, is one of the most arid locations of the Sahara. Discovery The shelter was discovered in 2002 by archaeologists Massimo and Jacopo Foggini and Ahmed Mestikawi. In 2010, scientists of the University of Cologne carried out an in-depth study of the shelter, calling it Wadi Sura II to distinguish it from the Cave of Swimmers (Wadi Sura I) located some further east. Age and paleo-climatology The rock pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zerzura
Zerzura ( ar, زرزورة) was a mythical city or oasis located in the Sahara Desert. The rumor Zerzura was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, the authors spoke of a city which was "white as a dove" and called it "The Oasis of Little Birds". In the ''Kitab al Kanuz'', Zerzura is said to be a city in the Sahara full of treasure with a sleeping king and queen. The city is guarded by black giants who keep anyone from going in and coming out. However, this may be a reference to the black Tebu people, nomads in Chad and Libya whose ancestors used to raid oases out in the Sahara. "The first European reference to Zerzura is in an 1835 account by the English Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson, based on a report by an Arab who said he had found the oasis while searching for a lost camel. Placed five days west of the track connecting the oases of Farafra and Bahariya, the "Oasis called Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The English Patient
''The English Patient'' is a 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje. The book follows four dissimilar people brought together at an Italian villa during the Italian Campaign of the Second World War. The four main characters are: an unrecognisably burned man — the eponymous patient, presumed to be English; his Canadian Army nurse; a Sikh British Army sapper; and a Canadian thief. The story occurs during the North African Campaign and centres on the incremental revelations of the patient's actions prior to his injuries, and the emotional effects of these revelations on the other characters. The story is told by multiple characters and "authors" of books the characters are reading. The book is, in part, a sequel to the 1987 novel ''In the Skin of a Lion'', which continues the story of characters of his stories, Hana and Caravaggio, as well as revealing the fate of the latter's main character, Patrick Lewis. It won the 1992 Booker Prize, the 1992 Governor General's Award and the 2018 G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
László Almásy
László Ede Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós ( hu, Almásy László Ede; ; 22 August/3 November 1895 – 22 March 1951) was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert explorer, aviator, Scout-leader and sportsman who served as the basis for the protagonist in both Michael Ondaatje's novel ''The English Patient'' (1992) and the movie adaptation of the same name (1996). Biography Almásy was born in Borostyánkő, Austria-Hungary (today Bernstein im Burgenland, Austria), into a Hungarian noble family (his father was the zoologist and ethnographer György Almásy), and, from 1911 to 1914, was educated at Berrow School, situated in a private house in Eastbourne, England, where he was tutored by Daniel Wheeler.Eastbourne Local History Society Newsletter Nr 143 World War I During World War I, Almásy joined the 11th Hussars along with his brother János. Almásy saw action against the Serbs, and then the Russians on the Eastern Front. In 1916, he transferred to the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cave Of Swimmers
The Cave of Swimmers is a cave with ancient rock art in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau of the Libyan Desert section of the Sahara. It is located in the New Valley Governorate of southwest Egypt, near the border with Libya. History The cave and rock art was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian explorer László Almásy. It contains Neolithic pictographs (rock painting images) and is named due to the depictions of people with their limbs bent as if they were swimming. The drawings include those of giraffe and hippopotamus. They are estimated to have been created as early as 10,000 years ago with the beginning of the African Humid Period, when the Sahara was significantly greener and wetter than it is today. The cause of the climate change 10,000 years ago was due to changes in summer solar insolation and vegetation and dust feedbacks. Almásy devoted a chapter to the cave in his 1934 book, ''The Unknown Sahara''. In it he postulates that the swimming scenes are real d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
