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Egypt
embraces two large Eastern and Western Deserts:
The Eastern Desert:
Stretches on 86,101 square miles (223,000 square km), starting
at the verge beneath the Mountains of the Red Sea and into central
Egypt until the borders of the Nile Valley. The region is known
as the Arabian Desert. The Arabian Desert has two distinct geographical
regions being, the limestone in the northern Al Ma'aza Plateau
and the southern Al' Ababda Plateau. There are no oases in the
Eastern Desert.
The western Desert:
Also know as the Libyan Desert, stretching on 332,434 square miles
(681,000 square km). Nubian sandstone and limestone highlands
separate from that of the North African or Great Sahara region.
There are Six oases in the Western Desert.
Bahariya Oasis:
Bahariya, the first of the six oases to be encountered, lies in
a depression about 300 km southwest of Cairo. From an archaeological
point of view, little seems to have survived the pharaonic period.
The Greco-Roman period on the other hand is represented by one
of the most important discoveries of the last years, a huge cemetery
(about 6 square kilometers) in the area of el-Bawiti, the capital
of Bahariya. More than one archaeological site is said to have
been discovered by chance after a horse or a donkey stumbled into
something. Also in this case, the hero seems to have been an unaware
donkey trotting along.
The result was the discovery of over one hundred mummies beautifully
decorated, some covered with a layer of gold, some wearing painted
masks, some buried in pottery coffins and some wrapped in linen.
Archaeologists excavating there expect to unearth over 10,000
mummies. Statuettes, pottery, jewels and coins were also found
in Bahariya Oasis.
Dakhla Oasis:
Like other oases, there is evidence that Dakhla was inhabited
since prehistory, but unlike all the others, here significant
remains dating to the Old Kingdom have been found. The archaeological
remains unearthed at 'Ayn Asil in the last twenty years suggest
that this oasis must have played an important role under the VI
Dynasty of the Egyptian kings. Placed at the junction between
the track called Darb el-Tawil, leading directly to Middle Egypt,
and the two caravan routes which via Kharga gave access to a number
of tracks to Upper Egypt, 'Ayn Asil was originally a small square
fortified enclosure.
Faraffra:
Very little is known about Farafra before the Roman period, of
which just a few remains have been found. In terms of antiquities,
there is little to see but the desert offers more than one spectacular
view. The area northeast of Qasr Farafra is called White Desert
and is definitely worth a visit (better be by a four wheeler).
Here chalk monoliths have been slowly eroded by the wind into
strange and suggestive shapes, which extend for kilometres all
around, creating a magnificent view. This region was probably
the scene of one of the most famous disasters that took place
in the Western Desert, the disappearance of Cambyses' Army. According
to Herodotus, when the Persian king Cambyses conquered Egypt,
he decided to send an expedition of 50,000 men from Thebes (Luxor)
to Siwa to destroy the Oracle of Amun and devastate the whole
oasis.
The story goes that while the army was marching somewhere in the
Western Desert, a great sand storm arose and annihilated it. There
are many theories about the exact route taken by the lost army,
and therefore about the place where the men met their fate. It
seems likely that, in order to reach Siwa from Thebes, the army
would have traveled via Kharga, Dakhla and Farafra, and then attempted
to cross the Great Sand Sea.
Fayyum Oasis:
The Fayyum is separated from the Nile Valley by a relatively thin
ridge and contains a large lake, called Birket Qarun, around which
the life in the area has always rotated. Geological studies proved
that the area of the Fayyum saw significant and turbulent changes
in its climate and geography, and in fact the region is famous
for the fossils that can be found in the desert. Apart from shells
of various sizes, skeletons of whales, sharks, crocodiles, giant
turtles and large horned mammals can be found in the desert north
of the lake.
Kharga Oasis:
All the oases have always been crossroads of caravan routes converging
from the barren desert. In the case of Kharga, this is made particularly
evident by the presence of a chain of fortresses that the Romans
built to protect the Darb el-Arbain, the long caravan route running
north to south between Middle Egypt and the Sudan.
Kharga is connected to the Nile Valley by means of two main tarred
roads, one in the south from Baris to Armant (and Luxor) and one
in the north (following the old Darb el-Arbain) from Kharga to
Asyut.
Siwa Oasis:
Siwa is the westernmost of the five major oases of Egypt and can
be reached by car from Baharia or from Marsa Matruh, on the Mediterranean
coast. In comparison with the other oases, the most striking feature
of the Siwan landscape is the presence of several salt lakes that
diminish in size during the summer.
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