Читать книгу A History of Ancient Egypt - Marc Van De Mieroop - Страница 20

The areas outside the reach of the Nile flood are arid desert. West of the Nile stretches out the Sahara, mostly uninhabitable but for its northern fringe along the Mediterranean Sea. In the vast desert plateau are some depressions where underground water surfaces to form oases (through Greek and Latin the English term probably derives from the ancient Egyptian word ouhat). Up to 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of the valley they constitute places that the Egyptians controlled and settled, sometimes with penal colonies. Routes between the oases made it possible to travel from north to south avoiding the Nile Valley. The eastern desert is much less extensive as it borders the Red Sea some 60 to 200 miles (95 to 320 kilometers) east of the Nile. In Egypt its northern part is a hilly plateau, while the southern part contains high mountains that are difficult to cross. Dry riverbeds, wadis in Arabic, cut through these mountains, however, and make travel from the Nile to the Red Sea possible, although water is in short supply from wells only.

Under current climatic conditions, the eastern and western deserts cannot support any farming and even the nomadic herding of animals is difficult. The eastern desert was a source of metals, including gold, and hard stones, however, and thus of great interest to the Egyptians. East of the Delta the eastern desert leads into Asia, across the modern Suez Canal. The Sinai desert to its east is mostly very inhospitable, and some parts of it contain high desolate mountains. Travel through Sinai is limited to routes along the Mediterranean coast. The region contains some very desirable resources, such as copper and the semi‐precious turquoise stone. Although Sinai formed a buffer between Egypt and Asiatic states, it was always in Egypt’s orbit.