The Eastern Arabic Desert...

 

Is located between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. It consists mainly of elevated and most rugged mountains paralleling the Red Sea Coast.

 

The Red Sea Mountains are a series of rugged mountains that were formed and shaped by the same violent earth movements and volcanic activities that formed the Red Sea rift. The area formed from the most ancient rocks in Egypt, with some dating back more than 550 million years.

 

The plants that thrive after the rare floods provide grazing for the desert dwellers, as well as for the several Bedouin tribes that roam the Eastern Desert. These desert nomads are perfectly at home in the wilderness of the Red Sea Mountains surroundings.

 

These mountains gained fame during the "Era of the Romans". The Romans discovered in these mountains granite and basalt and established many quarrels for her pompously palaces.



Bedouins and Nomads...

 

The Bedouin (Arabic:‎ badawī) is a grouping of nomadic Arab peoples who have historically inhabited the desert regions in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and the Levant. The English word bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī, which means "desert dweller", and is traditionally contrasted with ḥāḍir, the term for sedentary people. The name still used for Bedouins today is simply Arab.

 

Bedouin territory stretches from the vast deserts of North Africa to the rocky sands of the Middle East. They are traditionally divided into tribes, or clans, and share a common culture of herding camels and goats.

 

The Bedouins are seen as Arabic cultures purest representatives and the Bedouins continue to be hailed by others. Arabs as "ideal Arabs", especially because of their rich oral poetic tradition, their herding lifestyle and their traditional code of honour.

 

The area in the desert between the Red Sea (El Gouna) and the river Nile (Qena) is since 1790 occupied from the tribe of the Khushma'an Bedouins. In this territory, with about 22.000 km², the clan have special rights. Only this clan is allowed to use and enter this area.

 

Sheikh Abdel Zaher is the oldest Sheikh (head of the clan) and the father of Samira Ouda, the owner of "Samiras Bedouin 

 



 The Oasis Malahha...

 

In the middle of the desert is located the oasis Malahha, with more than 1500 palm, acacia, shrubs, reeds. Visible Source, lakes, migratory birds, and more. Under palm and acacias trees shadow to rest.

 

Around the oasis (in Wadi Esh and Wadi Belih) sedimentary and metamorphic rocks Flints, limestone, sandstone, dolomite.

The word oasis came into English via Latin: oasis from Ancient Greek: óasis, which in turn is a direct borrowing from Demotic Egyptian. The word for oasis in the later attested Coptic language (the descendant of Demotic Egyptian) is wahe or ouahe which means a "dwelling place".

 

Oases are made fertile when sources of fresh water, such as underground rivers or aquifers, irrigate the surface naturally or via man-made wells. Oases can vary in size from about 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) to much larger areas that can support many farms.



The imperial granite quarries of

Mons Porphyrites...

 

... are classified as Roman Cultural Heritage.

 

For centuries the imperial porphyry was considered to be a stone associated with the Roman Emperors and also a symbol of their power. The imperial porphyry is a highly valued dacite of spectacular violet colour tone. Between the first and the fifth century (anno domini), it served almost like an exclusive representing of the imperial dynasty and later dynasties.

 

The rock was mined in huge quarries at Mons Porphyrites, in the Djebel Dokhan mountains in the Eastern Egypt Desert, nat too far from Hurghada. New radiometric dating, using the uranium-lead dating method confirmed two different formation phases, of 630-623 and 618-592 million years ago.

 

The imperial porphyry is characterized by a petrographic structure with phenocrysts. These have a multiple of the grain. According to current historical knowledge, the term "porphyrite" was first used in a Greek inscription on a shift which was found 1995 in one of the stone pits of the Mons Porphyrites. It was dated 23 July 18 AD during the reign of Tiberius. (Maxfield & Peacock 2001)



The imperial granite quarries of

Mons Claudianus...

 

At the end of the first century (emperor Trajan – 98 to 117 AD) throughout 200 years, the granite was mined. The roman called this material „Marble Claudianum“.

 

The Italian name „Granito del foro“ states where the material was used. But the material was also installed in many other roman magnificent buildings, such as the Pantheon in Rome.

 

In the quarry some unfinished or broken items were left, f.e. an approximately 220 tons heavy column.



The street of the Romans -

Via Romana

 

... are classified as Roman Cultural Heritage.

 

The roman road from the quarry westward to Qena on the Nile is also known as the Via Porphyrites (the Porphyry Road). Its track is marked by the hydreumata, or water wells, which made it viable in this utterly dry landscape.

 

Along the way are seven hydreumata, or fortified wells, each one a day's march from the next. Outside the fortifications are lines of large stones to which oxen were tethered at night.

 

Archaeologist Steven Sidebotham of the University of Delaware, an authority on the Roman roads of the Red Sea mountains, surveyed the Via Porphyrites in 1989. He concluded that from the first to the third centuries of our era, the hydreumata were used as watering stations for the porphyry carts and that in the following three centuries when quarrying had ceased and tribal raiding from the south had commenced, they became Roman border posts and strong points along the line of communication between the Nile and the fort at Abu Sha'ar on the Red Sea coast.

 

The Via Porphyrites follows three major systems of wadis, or streambeds: Wadi Belih, Wadi al-Attrash and Wadi Qena. Between the first two, it crosses the divide between the Red Sea watershed and that of the Nile. From Wadi Belih, there are two approaches to the quarry. One is a winding route up Wadi Umm Sidri and into Wadi Abu Mu'amal ("Workplace Wadi"), and it is this route that the oxcarts followed. The other is a steep but more direct footpath over a 950-meter (3000') pass.



Coptic Cultural Heritage

Monastery and hermit caves at Wadi Qattar

 

The Christian Monastery at Qattar - Nagaat is situated in the Nagaat Canyon of the Qattar mountains, between Mons Porphyrites to the north and Mons Claudianus to the south.

 

Sir John Wilkinson's 1825 AD described the Wadi in the "Journal of the Royal Geographical Society". Nagaat was home to a Christian anchorite community, founded by runaway slaves from Mons Porphyrites and hermits in the fourth century.

 

Rock church remains in perfect condition, except for a missing roof.

 

An inscription, now removed to Cairo shows that it was built by Flavius Julius when Hatres was Bishop of Maximianopolis in the year 339 AD.

 

In a fifth-century history of Christian hermits written by Palladius, one can read the first-person account of a man named Posidonis: "I live in the Porphyry area for one year. I met no one, not heard a voice, not eaten bread. Only wild honey and dates kept me alive. Once this food was no longer available, I decided to go back into the world of humans. I discovered a Roman and immediately flew to my cave. On the way, I found fresh figs, which made me happy for two months".