Qalamūn (ed-Dāchla) - Qalamūn (ed-Dāchla)

Mudbrick ruins of el-Qalamūn
El-Qalamun · ‏القلمون‎
GovernorateNew valley
Residents
1.745 (2006)
height
107 m
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location
Location map of the New Valley in Egypt
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Qalamun

El-Qalamun (Arabic:القلمون‎, al-Qalamun, spoken: ig-Galamūn, Coptic: Ⲕⲁⲗⲁⲙⲱⲛ, Kalamon) is a village in the northwest of the egyptian Sink ed-Dāchla. The settlement was one of the largest and most important in the valley during the High and Late Middle Ages.

background

El-Qalamūn is a village to the west of the depression ed-Dāchla, about 11.5 kilometers from Courage away.

El-Qalamūn is one of the oldest villages in the valley and was next to el-Qaṣr most important place in the valley for a long time. The place was next to el-Qaṣr and in the 11th century el-Qaṣaba by the Arab-Spanish historian el-Bakrī (1014-1094) briefly described:

“After leaving el-Qaṣr, the traveler crosses a series of closely spaced villages. Upon arrival in Qaṣr Qalamūn, you notice that the water has a bitter taste. But the inhabitants drink and use it, also to irrigate their land. They believe that using this water will keep them healthy. And if it turns out that they enjoy fresh water, then they say it is unhealthy. "[1]

The component Amun suggests that the place could be significantly older. There is also a Greek variant of the name with the same name Καλαμών.[2] There are several suggestions as to the meaning of the name. The derivation from Arabic is not absurd Qalʿa Amūn, the "Fortress of Amun". Gerhard Rohlfs (1831-1896) led the suggestion from the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius (1810-1884) that the place name is derived from the ancient Egyptian Gel-Amun, “Source or pig of Amun”. El-Qalamūn could also be derived from the Greek word Κάλαμος, Kalamos, derive what stands for reed or reed.

Of course, the place is included in the list of 24 places in the valley of the Egyptian historian Ibn Duqmāq (1349-1407).[3] The place is shown as large and there are vineyards as well. The special thing about this place is that there was a church for Christians here at the beginning of the 15th century. This is one of the earliest literary testimonies for Christians in the ed-Dāchla depression. There is no archaeological record of a church building from the urban area. Perhaps the reference was to the nearby monastery Deir Abū Mattāwhich existed since the middle of the 4th century.

The Briton Archibald Edmonstone (1795–1871)[4], who visited the valley in 1819, only mentioned the place by name as Gelamoon. The Italian Bernardino Drovetti (1776–1852)[5], who stayed in el-Qalamūn that same year, reported that three-story houses were threatened by sand and that el-Qalamūn was the seat of a [Turkish] governor. In the course of the 19th century, however, the administrative seat was transferred to el-Qaṣr. For the year 1825 the British gave John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875) 800–1000 male residents for the village.[6]

With the fall of the Roman Empire, the valley was repeatedly the target of attacks by Bedouins. Rohlfs and Paul Ascherson reported that there were attacks again around 1775. As a result, all wells in the southwest on the way to Wadai and Dār Fūr Deliberately destroyed up to a distance of seven to eight day trips and military stationed in el-Qalamūn and el-Qaṣr.

The German ethnologist Frank Bliss stated that the oldest archaeological evidence was a lintel beam from 1696/1697 (1108 AH) is[7] on which further ancestors are named, which go back to about 1450. Documents have been in existence since 1676/1677 (1087 AH) handed down. Families of Turkish origin lived in the village, e.g. the Schurbagī clan, from whose ranks also governors (kāshifs) and other administrative officials emerged.

British cartographer Hugh John Llewellyn Beadnell (1874–1944) gave 1,704 inhabitants for 1897.[8] In 2006 there were 1,745 inhabitants.[9]

getting there

The village is reached similarly to that magical source via the trunk road from ed-Dāchla to Qaṣr ed-Dāchla and el-Farāfra. An asphalt road branches off this trunk road to the west of ed-Duhūs 1 25 ° 33 '16 "N.28 ° 56 ′ 50 ″ E to el-Qalamun.

mobility

The old village center can only be explored on foot.

Tourist Attractions

It is worth seeing 1 old village center(25 ° 33 ′ 10 ″ N.28 ° 54 ′ 30 ″ E) with its adobe houses. Some of the houses are still inhabited today, others are in ruins. The houses had up to three floors and a roof terrace.

Minaret of the old mosque
Old mosque
Inside the mosque
View of the prayer niche

The most important building is the mosque from the Ayyubid period (11th / 12th centuries), which is still intact. Several pillars support the roof of the mosque, which was formed from tree trunks covered with branches and plastered with clay. The mosque has a simple and decorated niche and a wooden pulpit. A squat minaret belongs to the mosque. The lower part is roughly square, the upper part round. In the upper half of the minaret had a wooden walkway with railings.

Ruins of the old village
Ruins of the old village
Old graveyard
New mosque

In the west of el-Qalamun was one 2 new mosque(25 ° 32 '46 "N.28 ° 54 ′ 19 ″ E) built.

To the west of the village is also the old cemetery.

kitchen

Restaurants are in courage.

accommodation

Accommodation is available in courage, in Budchulū, in Qasr ed-Dachla and along this road to el-Farāfra.

trips

It is advisable to visit the village with the ruins of the monastery Deir Abū Mattā and the village Budchulū connect to. On the way from ed-Duhūs to el-Qalamūn you can make a detour to the so-called. 3 magical source(25 ° 32 '38 "N.28 ° 56 ′ 2 ″ E) Companies.

literature

  • Rohlfs, Gerhard: Three months in the Libyan desert. Cassel: Fisherman, 1875, Pp. 250, 295 f.Reprinted Cologne: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 1996, ISBN 978-3-927688-10-0 .
  • Bliss, Frank: Economic and social change in the "New Valley" of Egypt: on the effects of Egyptian regional development policy in the oases of the western desert. Bonn: Political working group for schools, 1989, Contributions to cultural studies; 12th, ISBN 978-3921876145 , Pp. 89, 102 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑El-Bekri, Abou-Obeid; Slane, William MacGuckin de: Description de l’Afrique septentrionale. Paris: Impr. Impérial, 1859, P. 40. In the description of the depression ed-Dāchla, el-Qalamūn (Calamoun) is listed between el-Qaṣr and el-Qaṣaba. So it can't Samuel Monastery be meant.
  2. ↑Wagner, Guy: Les oasis d'Égypte à l’époque grecque, romaine et byzantine d'après les documents grecs, Le Caire: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1987, (Bibliothèque d’étude; 100), p. 196, footnote 3.
  3. ↑Ibn-Duqmāq, Ibrāhīm Ibn-Muḥammad: Kitāb al-Intiṣār li-wāsiṭat ʿiqd al-amṣār; al-Guzʿ 5. Būlāq: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Kubrā al-Amīrīya, 1310 AH [1893], p. 11 below-12, especially p. 12, line 4.
  4. ↑Edmonstone, Archibald: A journey to two of oases of upper Egypt, London: Murray, 1822, p. 52.
  5. ↑Drovetti, [Bernardino]: Journal d’un voyage à la vallée de Dakel, in: Cailliaud, Frédéric; Jomard, M. (ed.): Voyage à l’Oasis de Thèbes et dans les déserts situés à l’Orient et à l’Occident de la Thébaïde fait pendant les années 1815, 1816, 1817 et 1818, Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1821, pp. 99-105, in particular pp. 102 f.
  6. ↑Wilkinson, John Gardner: Modern Egypt and Thebes: being a description of Egypt; including the information required for travelers in that country; Vol.2. London: Murray, 1843, Pp. 363-365.
  7. ↑Décobert, Christian; Gril, Denis: Linteaux à épigraphes de l’Oasis de Dakhla, Le Caire: Inst. Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1981, (Annales islamologiques: Supplément; 1).
  8. ↑Beadnell, Hugh John Llewellyn: Dakhla Oasis. Its topography and geology, Cairo, 1901, (Egyptian Geological Survey Report; 1899.4).
  9. ↑Population according to the 2006 Egyptian census, accessed June 3, 2014.
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