Batn-El-Hajar or ''Belly of Stones'' is a reach of approximately 160 km in length stretching from the Dal

Cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble ...

of the

Nile The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest ...

downriver to the now under

Lake Nubia A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

submerged Second Cataract in present-day Sudan.

History

''Batn-El-Hajar'' is a barren and granite-rich landscape limiting arable soil and, thus, sparsely inhabited. It was the traditional border between

Upper Nubia Upper Nubia is the southernmost part of Nubia, upstream on the Nile from Lower Nubia. It is so called because the Nile flows north, so it is further upstream and of higher elevation in relation to Lower Nubia. The extension of ''Upper Nubia'' is ra ...

and

Lower Nubia Lower Nubia is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, and all its modern p ...

. In this area are a number of important

A-Group The A-Group culture was an ancient culture that flourished between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Nubia. It lasted from 3800 BC to 3100 BC. Overview In 1907, the Egyptologist George A. Reisner first discovered artifacts belong ...

and Meroitics archeological sites.D. N. Edwards and A. J. Mills; 'Pharaonic' Sites in the Batn el-Hajar - the 'Archaeological Survey of Sudanese Nubia' Revisited; in: Sudan & Nubia, No 17, published by The Sudan Archaeological Research Society; 2013.

References

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