The Nubian Desert is an expanse of some 154,440 square miles of
rocks strewn between the Red Sea and the River Nile in north-east
Sudan. The desert has little rainfall nor any oasis and is
inhabited to a limited extent by Nubian nomads.
The Nubian Desert is
unlike the stereotypical image of a desert in that it is mainly
rocks (see video right) on a sandstone plateau rather than sand
itself, although it is interspersed with sand dunes.
The
Nubian Desert is located between Egypt to its north, the Red Sea
to its east, the Nile River to its south and the Libyan Desert
to its west.
With less than five
inches of rainfall a year, it is has numerous 'wadis' ~ seasonal rivers ~ that dry up long before reaching
their goal of the River Nile. These wadis provide a home for the
rare Nubian Desert Palm Medemia Argun which is very
drought tolerant and only found in the Nubian Desert having
been, until recently, considered extinct. (In ancient Egypt the
fruit of the palm was often placed in Egyptian tombs signifying
the importance of its occupant.)
This almost total lack of water
makes the Nubian desert practically uninhabitable, except for
hyenas and the Nubian ibex (a type of goat) together with some
other forms of wildlife including turtles that can be seen
traversing
it from time to time, however there are fossils indicating that
the area was once home to forests before desertification swept
the area, turning it into the barren, arid landscape seen today.
On
the outskirts of the Nubian desert can be found the Pyramids of
Meroe , near to the bank of the River Nile. There are
around two hundred and fifty of these pyramids constructed from the desert
sandstone. They are the ancient burial places of the Kingdom of Kush
(1000 BCE to 350 CE), dating back to around 800 years after the construction of
the last Egyptian pyramids which are much larger in size.
These historic pyramids are featured in this short video about the Nubian
Desert above featuring traditional Numbian music as a backdrop.
The Nubian Desert's most recent claim to fame is that it was the landing place
of asteroid 2008 TC3 which exploded creating a fireball as bright as the moon.
Fragments of the asteroid have been recovered and are currently being
investigated at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory.
