<< Our Photo Pages >> Gebel Barkal Mountain and Rock Formation - Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature in Sudan
Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 16 January 2010 Page Views: 8392
Natural PlacesSite Name: Gebel Barkal Mountain and Rock Formation Alternative Name: Gebel Barkal Sacred Cobra, Jebel Barkal UraeusCountry: Sudan
NOTE: This site is 0.352 km away from the location you searched for.
Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
Nearest Town: Karima town
Latitude: 18.536888N Longitude: 31.828513E
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Natural Feature in Sudan. Jebel Barkal is a very small mountain located some 400 km north of Khartoum, in Karima town in Northern State in Sudan, on a large bend of the Nile River, in the region called Nubia.
Around 1450 BC, the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III extended his empire to that region and considered Gebel Barkal its southern limit. There, he campaigned near the city of Napata that, about 300 years later, became the capital of the independent kingdom of Kush. The 25th Dynasty Nubian king Piye later greatly enlarged the New Kingdom Temple of Amun in this city and erected his Year 20 Victory stela within it.
The ruins around Gebel Barkal include at least 13 temples and 3 palaces, that were for the first described by European explorers in the 1820s, although only in 1916 were archeological excavations started by George Reisner under a joint expedition of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. From the 1970’s, explorations continued by a team from the University of Rome La Sapienza, under the direction of Sergio Donadoni, that was joined by another team from the Boston Museum, in the 1980’s, under the direction of Timothy Kendall. The larger temples, such that of Amun, are even today considered sacred to the local population.
Source: Wikipedia
The Egyptians, and perhaps the earlier Nubians as well, attached religious significance to the mountain because of the unusual freestanding pinnacle on its southwestern corner. Viewed from different angles, this statue-like, natural rock formation appeared to them variously as (a) a uraeus (sacred cobra) wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, (b) a uraeus wearing a sun disk, and (c) an erect phallus, evocative of the procreative forms of Amen/Re-Atum. The mountain came to be seen not only as a primeval source of creation, but also as the original home of the sun god’s uraeus (the “Eye of Re”) and the king’s uraeus, and thus an important source of kingship.
Source: Old Maps, Expeditions and Explorations
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