Umm Taqa
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Umm Taqa ( ar, أُمّ طَاقَة, Umm Ţāqah) is a district in central
Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
located in the
municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
of
Al-Shahaniya Al Shahaniya ( ar, الشحانية, Ash Shīḩānīyah) is a municipality (3299 km2) in Qatar, with its municipal seat has a city of the same name (39 km2). Formerly in the municipality of Al Rayyan, but now an independent municipali ...
. It is an important
Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
site in the peninsula. Nearby settlements include
Al Kharsaah Al Kharsaah ( ar, الخرسعة; also spelled ''Al Khuraisa'') is a village in Qatar located in the municipality of Al-Shahaniya, approximately 80 km west of the capital Doha. Nearby areas include Umm Washah, Umm Al-Jaljam, Umm Bab and Umm Taqa ...
to the south-west and
Al Nasraniya Al Nasraniya ( ar, النصرانية, An Naşrānīyah) is a village in Qatar, located in the municipality of Al-Shahaniya. It was demarcated in 1988. It used to be part of the Al Jemailiya municipality before the municipality was incorporated int ...
to the north.


Etymology

Umm is the
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
for "mother", and is commonly used as a prefix for geographical features. The second constituent, "taqa", is derived from the Arabic "tawq", which translates to "encircle". It was given this name because it is flanked by hills on all sides.


History

John Gordon Lorimer mentions Umm Taqa in his 1908 manuscript of the ''
Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf The ''Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia'' (nicknamed ''Lorimer'') is a two-volume encyclopedia compiled by John Gordon Lorimer. The ''Gazetteer'' was published in secret by the British government in India in 1908 and 1915 an ...
'', giving its location as "14 miles south of Dohat Fashshākh and 16 miles from the west coast". He also mentions "a masonry well, 25 fathoms deep, of good water" in the area.


See also

* Archaeology of Qatar#Taqan culture


References

Populated places in Al-Shahaniya {{Qatar-geo-stub