Kharga Oasis

Overview

Kharga is the most modernized of Egypt's western oases. The main town is highly functional with all modern facilities, and virtually nothing left of old architecture. Although framed by the oasis, there is no oasis feeling to it; unlike all other oases in this part of Egypt. There is extensive thorn palm, acacia, buffalo thorn and jujube growth in the oasis surrounding the modern town of Kharga. Many remnant wildlife species inhabit this region.

Climate

The Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh).

Darb El Arba`īn caravan route

A trade route called Darb El Arba`īn (w:ar:درب الأربعين, "the Way of Forty") passed through Kharga in the south and Asyut in the north It was a long caravan route running north-south between Middle Egypt and the Sudan. It was used from as early as the Old Kingdom of Egypt for the transport and trade of gold, ivory, spices, wheat, animals and plants. The maximum extent of Darb El Arba`īn was northward from Kobbei in Darfur, 25 miles north of al-Fashir, passing through the desert, through Bir Natrum and Wadi Howar, and ending in Egypt.

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 Arba`īn route. The forts vary in size and function, some being just small outposts, some guarding large settlements complete with cultivation. Some were installed where earlier settlements already existed, while others were probably started from scratch. All of them are made of mud bricks, but some also contain small stone temples with inscriptions on the walls.

Described by Herodotus as a road "traversed ... in forty days," by his time the route had already become an important land route facilitating trade between Nubia and Egypt. The length of the journey is the reason for it being called Darb El Arba`īn, the implication being "the forty-day road".

After the prominent Christian theologian Nestorius was condemned as a heretic in the 431 Council of Ephesus, he was removed from his position as Patriarch of Constantinople and exiled to a monastery then located in the Great Oasis of Hibis (El Kharga). There he lived for the rest of his life. The monastery suffered attacks by desert bandits, and Nestorius was injured in one such raid. Nestorius seems to have survived there until at least 450 and there had composed the Bazaar of Heracleides - the only one of writings to survive in full, and of importance to the Christian Nestorians who follow his teachings.

As part of a caravan proceeding to Dafur, the English explorer W.G. Browne paused for several days at Kharga, leaving with the rest of the group 7 June 1793. At the time a gindi was stationed at Kharga, "belonging to Ibrahim Bey El Kebir, to whom those villages appertain; and to [this official] is entrusted the management of what relates to the caravan during the time of its stay there."

In 1930 the archaeologist, Gertrude Caton–Thompson, uncovered the palaeolithic history of Kharga.

Temple of Hibis

See Temple of Hibis

Demographics

Native Khargans belong to the related Beja ethnic group. They speak Beja, their own Afro-Asiatic language, though Arabic is the dominant tongue.

Transportation

A regular bus service connects the oasis to the other Western oases and to the rest of Egypt. A railway line Kharga - Qena (Nile Valley) - Port Safaga (Red Sea) has been in service since 1996.

Archaeological sites

The Temple of Hibis is a Saite-era temple founded by Psamtik II, which was erected largely c. 500 BC. It is located about 2 kilometres north of modern Kharga, in a palm-grove. There is a second 1st millennium BC temple in the southernmost part of the oasis at Dush. An ancient Christian cemetery at El Bagawat also functioned at the Kharga Oasis from the 3rd to the 7th century AD. It is one of the earliest and best preserved Christian cemeteries in the ancient world.

The first list of sites is due to Ahmad Fakhri but serious archaeological work began in 1976 with Serge Sauneron, director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.

Meteorite dagger

In June 2016, a report emerged that attributed the dagger buried with Pharaoh Tutankhamun to an iron meteorite, with similar proportions of metals (iron, nickel and cobalt) to one discovered near and named after Kharga Oasis. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor shower.