Gazīrat Firʿaun - Gazīrat Firʿaun

View of the Citadel on Pharaoh Island
Pharaoh Island
Gazīrat Firʿaun · ‏جزيرة فرعون‎
GovernorateSouth Sinai
height
14 m
no tourist info on Wikidata: Add tourist information
location
Location map of the Sinai in Egypt
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Gazīrat Firʿaun

Gazirat Fir'aun (also French: Île de Graye, Île du Pharaon, English: Pharaoh’s Island, Coral Island, Arabic:جزيرة فرعون‎, Ǧazīrat Firʿaun / Firʿawn, „Island of a pharaoh") Is a four-hectare fortress island in the north of the Gulf of Aqaba east of the peninsula Sinai, about 5 kilometers south of Taba and about 200 meters east of the coast of Sinai. The fortress was built by the Crusaders in the early 12th century and was named Île de Graye. She later became the general Saladin conquered, and the fortress was expanded. The island has nothing to do with pharaohs. The name Gazīrat Firʿaun or Pharaoh Island has only been in use since the 19th century.

background

location

The granite rock island Gazīrat Firʿaun is only 200 meters away from the east coast of Sinai. It is five kilometers as the crow flies southwest of Taba, 14 kilometers southwest of Eilat and 15 kilometers southwest of Aqaba.

The island measures about 350 meters from north to south and about 170 meters from west to east. The area is 3.9 hectares.

history

Historical representation of the island of David Roberts, 1839

Little is known about the island's early history. Nelson luck (1900–1971), who visited the island in 1934, found fragments on the island from the Byzantine period, but mainly from the Arab period.[1]Beno Rothenberg (1914–2012) identified the island with the biblical one Ezion giver, Hebrew: עֶצְיֹן גֶּבֶר.[2] He dated the fragments found during his investigations in 1957 to the Iron age in the tenth century BC. The presumption that Gazīrat Firʿaun was Ezion-Geber was already in 1830 by Léon de Laborde (1807-1869) expressed.[3]

To get the route from Cairo to Damascus to be able to control, built the crusaders on behalf of Balduin I., King of Jerusalem, in the winter of 1116 in the south of the city they conquered Aqaba on this island, which they called Île de Graye, a citadel, which was orphaned a little later. In December 1170, Aqaba and the island were ruled by the Sultan Saladin (1137 / 1138–1193), who had the fortress rebuilt and set up a garrison there, according to a founding inscription. The attempt of the French crusader Renaud de Châtillon (1125–1187) to attack and besiege the island 1181–1183, failed due to insufficient military strength.[4]

In 1217 the pilgrim Magister Thietmar visited the island, who told of Saracens and captured Christians who fished for the Sultan of Cairo.[5] The island was later taken over by the Mamluk troops, who installed a governor here until the beginning of the 14th century. 1321 found the Arab historian Ismāʿīl Ibn-ʿAlī Abu-’l-Fidāʾ (Abulfeda, 1273-1331) but no longer a governor on the island, which he Aila, Arabic:أيلة, Called,[6][7] which differs from the settlement 15 kilometers to the north Eilat derives. The governors have ruled in Aqaba ever since.

The island was deserted from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. In 1822 the German naturalist visited Eduard Rüppell as the first European (1794–1884) to visit the island. He named the fortress Gelat Emrag, which is derived from the nearby Wadi Emrag.[8] The two French explorers traveled on March 18, 1827 Léon de Laborde (1807-1869) and Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds (1799-1883) the island Île de Graie.[3] Lieut explored around 1830. James R. Wellsted, Indian Navy officer (1805–1842), the island he was first Jezirat Pharoun and Pharaoh’s Isle named, but without specifying where this name came from.[9] He was followed in 1839 by the Scottish painter David Roberts (1796–1864), who published depictions of the island in 1842. Pharaoh Island does not seem to have been the common name among the local population at the time. Rather, the island simply became el-Qureiya from them,القريّة‎, al-Quraiya, „the little village", called.[10]

The Briton was also one of the modern visitors Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888–1935, "Lawrence of Arabia"), who visited the island in June 1914.[11]

In 1986 and 2009 the citadel was extensively restored. On July 28, 2003, an application was made to give this citadel its modern name Saladin Citadel, ‏قلعة صلاح الدين‎, Qalʿat Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn, and the Citadel el-Gindī to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site.[12]

getting there

Arrival can be made by boat from nearby Salah al-Deen Resort south of Ṭābā respectively. There are two landing stages in the north of the facility. The journey costs at least LE 20. The 1 Jetty on the island is on its west side.

mobility

You have to explore the island on foot.

Tourist Attractions

Stairway to the Citadel of Saladin
Wall of the Citadel of Saladin

The entrance fee is LE 200, for foreign students LE 100 (as of 11/2019).

Of course, the only attraction on the island is this 1 Saladin fortress itself, which is located in the northern part of the island. The fortress wall with its battlements, 22 bastions and the fortified access were built from limestone blocks. An Arabic inscription is placed on the rock, naming both the founder Saladin and the builder Ibrahim ibn Abi Bahr and his son.

Inside the fortress there are three cisterns, one of which dates from Saladin's time, the remains of a church, a mosque carved into the rock, the governor's residence, accommodations for the soldiers, a bakery, a dovecote and workshops for making weapons.

In the southern part of the island are the remains of the former 2 settlement and a small one 3 lake.

activities

Many tourists use the trip to the island for snorkeling or diving. Dive guides can be booked through Salah al-Deen Resort. There is a coral reef on the north side of the island.

kitchen

If enough tourists come, the cafeteria on the island will also open.

accommodation

Accommodation can be found in Ṭābā and in other tourist resorts on the east coast of Sinai.

1  Salah al-Deen Resort (Helnan Taba). Tel.: 20 (0)69 353 0340, (0)69 353 0341, Fax: 20 (0)69 353 0343, Email: . The 3-star hotel with 114 twin rooms is located in the immediate vicinity of the island.(29 ° 27 ′ 41 ″ N.34 ° 51 ′ 15 ″ E)

See also

  • Saladin Fortress opened on Pharaoh Island, news dated October 4, 2012

literature

  • Pringle, D.: The castles of Ayla (al-ʿAqaba) in the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods. In:Vermeulen, Urbain; Steenbergen, Jo van (Ed.): Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV: proceedings of the 9th and 10th international colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001. Leuven [and others]: Peeters, 2005, Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta: OLA; 140, ISBN 978-90-429-1524-4 .
  • Pringle, Denys: Aila and Ile de Graye. In:Murray, Alan V. (Ed.): The crusades: an encyclopedia; 1: A - C. Santa Barbara, Calif. [among others]: ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 978-1-57607-862-4 (Set of 4 volumes), p. 23.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑Lucky Nelson: Exploration in Eastern Palestine; Vol.3. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939, P. 11.
  2. ↑Rothenberg, Beno: God’s wilderness: discoveries in Sinai. London: Thames & Hudson, 1961, Pp. 86-92, 185-189.
  3. ↑ 3,03,1Laborde, Léon, de; Linant [de Bellefonds, Louis Maurice Adolphe]: Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée. Paris: Giard, 1830, Pp. 14, 48 f., A plate. On page 14, Laborde suggests that the island could be Ezion donors.
  4. ↑Mouton, Jean-Michel; ʿAbd al-Mālik, Sāmī Ṣāliḥ: La forteresse de l’île de Graye (Qalʿat Ayla) à l’époque de Saladin: Étude épigraphique et historique. In:Annales Islamologiques (AnIsl), ISSN0570-1716, Vol.29 (1995), Pp. 75-90.
  5. ↑See inter alia: Pringle, Denys (Ed.): Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187-1291. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, Crusade texts in translation; 23, ISBN 978-0-7546-5125-3 . Chapter 2: Thietmar: Pilgrimage (1217-18).
  6. ↑Keel, Othmar; Küchler, Max; Uehlinger, Christoph: Places and Landscapes of the Bible: A Handbook and Study Guide to the Holy Land; 2: The south. Zurich [and others]: Benziger [et al.], 1982, ISBN 978-3-525-50167-2 , P. 289 f.
  7. ↑For the name Aila see: Abulfeda: 9. Descriptio Arabiæ. In:Hudson, John (Ed.): Geographiæ veteris Scriptores Graeci Minores: cum Interpretatione Latina, Dissertationibus, ac Annotationibus; vol. 3. Oxon: Sheldon, 1712, P. 41 (in section 9). — Abulfeda; Rommel, Christoph von: Arabiae Descriptio commentario perpetuo illustrata. Goettingen: Dieterich, 1802, P. 78 f.
  8. ↑Rüppell, Eduard: Travels in Nubia, Kordofan and Petrean Arabia: excellent in geographical and statistical terms. Frankfurt am Main: Wilmans, 1829, Pp. 251 f., 386 f., Plate VII.
  9. ↑Wellsted, J [ames] R.: Travels in Arabia; 2: Sinai; Survey of the Gulf of Akabah; Coasts of Arabia and Nubia. London: Murray, 1838, Pp. 140, 142-145.
  10. ↑Robinson, E [dward]; Smith, E [li]: Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A journal of travels in the year 1838; Undertaken in reference to biblical geography; Vol.1. London: Murray, 1841, P. 237 f.
  11. ↑Woolley, C [harles] Leonard; Lawrence, T [homas] E.: The Wilderness of Zin; archaeological report: 1914-1915. London, 1915, Annual / Palestine Exploration Fund; 3.1914 / 15, Pp. 145-147.
  12. ↑Two citadels in Sinai from the Saladin period, accessed October 9, 2011.
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