Itbay

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Red Sea Hills in Egypt Red sea mountains.jpg
Red Sea Hills in Egypt
Closer view of the arid, rocky Red Sea Hills Egyptian desert.jpg
Closer view of the arid, rocky Red Sea Hills

Itbāy (Arabic : اطبيه) or ʿAtbāy is a region of southeastern Egypt and northeastern Sudan. It is characterized by a chain of mountains, the Red Sea Hills, running north–south and parallel with the Red Sea. The hills separate the narrow coastal plain from the Eastern Desert. [1]

Contents

Geology

The Red Sea Hills are composed of the exposed Neoproterozoic volcano-sedimentary rock of the Arabian-Nubian Shield. Although the rock itself is 550–900 million years old, the mountains were created by uplift when the Red Sea itself was formed in the Oligocene, only some 23–34 million years ago. The Red Sea Hills are thus part of the same formation as the Sarawat Mountains of Saudi Arabia and the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula. [2] The Red Sea Hills rise almost to 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) today, but in the past were much higher. The Oligocene uplift caused the rejuvenation of their streams and the increased erosion removed most of the limestone and sandstone to expose the basement layer. [3]

The Itbāy is arid, receiving less than 200 millimetres (7.9 in) of rainfall each year with high variability. [4] The Barka River, the most significant of the few seasonal streams that flow into the Red Sea, rises in the Red Sea Hills of Sudan and empties into the sea at the Tokar Delta. In prehistoric times it was probably a permanent river. [5]

History

In prehistoric times, the Red Sea Hills were likely the area where the Proto-Cushitic language was spoken. [6]

The Red Sea Hills are a source of porphyry, which was being mined as early as the fourth millennium BC. [7]

The Red Sea Hills are inhabited by the Beja people who speak a Cushitic language and practice pastoralism. They mainly live near the dry riverbeds, wādīs, that flow seasonally into the sea and the Nile, where there is limited vegetation. [4] In antiquity, the Beja were known as the Blemmyes and their presence in the hills is detected archaeologically by the presence of Eastern Desert Ware from the fourth century AD. The material culture of the hills places it firmly within ancient Egypt's sphere of influence. Extensive mining settlements have been found in the Wadi Allaqi and the Wadi Gabgaba. The early Blemmyes built platform tumuli (flat-topped burial mounds), and the appearance of cairns to mark burials in the late Middle Ages may be linked to Islamization. [7]

Related Research Articles

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The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As of 2012, the Cushitic languages with over one million speakers were Oromo, Somali, Beja, Afar, Hadiyya, Kambaata, and Sidama.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nubians</span> Ethnolinguistic group native to northern Sudan and southern Egypt

Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan speaking ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of civilization. In the southern valley of Egypt, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from Egyptians, although they intermarried with members of other ethnic groups, especially Arabs. They speak Nubian languages as a mother tongue, part of the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages, and Arabic as a second language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beja people</span> Cushitic ethnic group native to Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea

The Beja people are a Cushitic ethnic group native to the Eastern Desert, inhabiting a coastal area from southeastern Egypt through eastern Sudan and into northwestern Eritrea. They are descended from peoples who have inhabited the area since 4000 BC or earlier, although they were Arabized by Arabs who settled in the region. They are nomadic and live primarily in the Eastern Desert. The Beja number around 1,900,000 to 2,759,000.

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The Kingdom of Kerma or the Kerma culture was an early civilization centered in Kerma, Sudan. It flourished from around 2500 BC to 1500 BC in ancient Nubia. The Kerma culture was based in the southern part of Nubia, or "Upper Nubia", and later extended its reach northward into Lower Nubia and the border of Egypt. The polity seems to have been one of a number of Nile Valley states during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. In the Kingdom of Kerma's latest phase, lasting from about 1700 to 1500 BC, it absorbed the Sudanese kingdom of Sai and became a sizable, populous empire rivaling Egypt. Around 1500 BC, it was absorbed into the New Kingdom of Egypt, but rebellions continued for centuries. By the eleventh century BC, the more-Egyptianized Kingdom of Kush emerged, possibly from Kerma, and regained the region's independence from Egypt.

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The C-Group culture is an archaeological culture found in Lower Nubia, which dates from c. 2400 BCE to c. 1550 BCE. It was named by George A. Reisner. With no central site and no written evidence about what these people called themselves, Reisner assigned the culture a letter. The C-Group arose after Reisner's A-Group and B-Group cultures, and around the time the Old Kingdom was ending in Ancient Egypt.

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Wadi el-Hudi is a mining region that includes a large wadi and a mountain named Gebel el-Hudi in the Egyptian Eastern Desert, Southeast of Aswan. The name hudi is thought to come from the Arabic word for guide. Wadi el-Hudi is geologically rich and has been the basis of considerable mining and study since Ancient times. While it was initially known for the ancient amethyst quarries, this area is important the study of Egyptian archaeology and history because of its high number of rock inscriptions, stele, settlements, and mines, mainly dating to the Middle Kingdom. This area is fairly large, about 100 square kilometers.

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References

  1. "Itbāy", in Encyclopædia Britannica (online 7 May 2012), accessed 31 December 2018.
  2. M. Sultan, S. Sefry and M. AbuAbdallah, "Impacts of Climate Change on the Red Sea Region and its Watersheds, Saudi Arabia", The Red Sea: The Formation, Morphology, Oceanography and Environment of a Young Oceanic Basin (Springer, 2015), p. 364.
  3. Bonnie M. Sampsell, The Geology of Egypt: A Traveler's Handbook (American University in Cairo Press, 2003), pp. 27–28.
  4. 1 2 Leif Manger, Managing pastoral adaptations in the Red Sea Hills of the Sudan: Challenges and Dilemmas (IIED, 1994), p. 2.
  5. W. Bosworth, "Geological Evolution of the Red Sea: Historical Background, Review, and Synthesis", The Red Sea: The Formation, Morphology, Oceanography and Environment of a Young Oceanic Basin (Springer, 2015), p. 50.
  6. Stevens, Chris J.; Nixon, Sam; Murray, Mary Anne; Fuller, Dorian Q. (July 2016). Archaeology of African Plant Use. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-315-43400-1.
  7. 1 2 David N. Edwards, The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan (Routledge, 2004), pp. 64, 209, 251–52.

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