Tineida - Tineida

Tineida (also Teneida, Tinida, Tanīda, Tenīdeh, Teneydeh, Arabic:تنيدة‎, Tinaida / Tinīda / Tunaida) is the easternmost village in the egyptian Sink ed-Dāchla in the New valley. The old village center is still largely preserved. About 6 kilometers south of the village there are several individually standing sandstone rocks, some of which are or were provided with graffiti.

background

location

Tineida is the easternmost point of the ed-Dāchla depression. The village is essentially on the north side of the trunk road from el-Chārga to Courage. Coming from the southeast, the road turns west here.

In the past, the place was also the end point of various caravan routes, so des Darb eṭ-Ṭawīlthat of Asyūṭ or. Benī ʿAdī in the Nile valley leads into the depression ed-Dāchla, the Darb el-Ghubbārī (Arabic:درب الغباري), Which the modern trunk road follows at times, and the Darb ʿAin Amūr, which over the Naqb Tineida (Tineida Pass) and ʿAin Amūr to el-Chārga leads.

history

Little is known about history. As can be seen from the ruins in the area, the village has been inhabited at least since Roman times. The French archaeologist Guy Wagner realized that the current name is from the Coptic Ⲧ ϩ ⲉⲛⲉ (ⲉ) ⲧⲉ, Thene (e) te, "The monastery", derived.^[1] The Egyptian historian Ibn Duqmāq (1349-1407) called the place large in his list of 24 localities in the valley.^[2]

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the village has been visited and mentioned several times by travelers, for example in 1819 by the British Archibald Edmonstone (1795–1871)^[3] and from the Italian Bernardino Drovetti (1776–1852)^[4] and in 1820 by the French Frédéric Cailliaud (1787–1869)^[5] and on May 13 and 14, 1908 by the American Egyptologist Herbert Eustis Winlock (1884–1950)^[6]. The ruins mentioned in the vicinity of the village are occasionally under el-Bashandī guided. A photograph of the Rohlfs expedition shows the view of the village surrounded by an adobe wall. In the village there were two-story houses with small windows and a sheikh tomb.

In the second half of the 18th century, the village was repeatedly targeted by Bedouin attacks, so that the local population left the village and settled in Balāṭ settled. In Edmonston's time the village was depopulated, and Drovetti found two or three inhabited houses here. John Gardner Wikinson (1797–1875), who visited the valley in 1825, described that in his time Tineida was again colonized by residents from Balāṭ, because the soil in the vicinity of the village was very fertile.^[7] Rohlfs counted 600 souls again in 1874 and reported on the indigo factories located here (there is a similar description from Edmonstone, but not from Tineida):

“The indigo factories here are particularly eye-catching; they are located close to the outdoor area, but under protective palm trees. The dye is obtained in the most primitive way. The dried leaves of the plants are [Indigofera articulata = Indigofera glauca Lamarck] mixed with hot water and worked through with a large stick for a long time. After the dye has been excreted through fermentation, the blue liquid is poured into round, shallow holes in the ground, the water evaporates and the blue dye remains on the ground in the form of a thin crust. "

British cartographer Hugh John Llewellyn Beadnell (1874–1944) gave 743 inhabitants for 1897. In 2006, 3,743 inhabitants were counted.^[8]

The descriptions of the ancient sites are a bit confused because the authors believe that they are always describing the same thing - a temple, in Arabic Birba - or that some of the description is given under el-Baschandī. The word only used in Egyptian Arabic Birba (Arabic:بربة) Means Egyptian temple. There is also a place named after it: ʿAin Birbīya. Drovetti (temple of A’yn el Berbyeh) and Cailliaud (temple of A’yn el Birbeh) certainly call the temple of ʿAin Birbīya im west by Tineida. Rohlfs describes an adobe building about 1 kilometer south-southeast von Tineida, in which he believes he recognizes a Roman fort. It is a square building with five rooms and a vaulted ceiling.

Winlock had taken a closer look around and named three groups of ruins between Tineida and el-Bashandī and a fourth between el-Bashandī and Balāṭ. The first group is about 2.5 kilometers north from Tineida and consists of three adobe buildings about 200 meters apart. The easternmost in the form of a temple has a length of 25 meters. To the north and south-west of this there are two more square buildings with the dimensions of 11 and 8 meters respectively. There are two ruins 1.5 kilometers from the aforementioned point and 2 kilometers southeast of el-Bashandī. The larger one has the shape of a temple and is about 25 meters long. The temples are similar in shape to that in Qaṣr eḍ-Ḍabāschīya in the valley el-Chārga.

In May 1931 Tineida hit the headlines of the international press: The London "Times" reported under the title "Flight from Kufra",^[9] that three men of the tribe of the ez-Zuwayya (Arabic:الزوية) Reached the Tineida Police Station after being dated for 21 days Gebel el-ʿUweināt had walked 420 miles (676 kilometers) through the desert to get help for their tribe members. This was preceded by a bombardment of the oasis Kufra, a stronghold of Sanūsī brotherhood, by Italian armed forces in 1930 and the occupation of the oasis by Italian troops at the end of January 1931. Part of the population, mainly from the ez-Zuwayya tribe, refused to submit and fled in March and April of the same year. While most of the tribesmen were waiting in Gebel el-ʿUweināt, some men were sent to Sudan and to ed-Dāchla in order to be able to settle the tribe there. After the odyssey of the three men, Egyptian authorities immediately sent an expedition with donkeys, camels and cars to rescue those waiting. 300 tribal members could be saved. The performance of the three men is described in the newspaper article as "a feat of endurance for which there are few parallels in the history of traveling through the desert". (“… A feat of endurance which can have few parallels in the history of desert travel.”)

getting there

The journey can be from el-Chārga and from Courage (about 43 kilometers) from. You can also rely on public transport such as buses and minibuses for this purpose. If you want to drive into the desert, it makes sense to use an all-terrain vehicle.

mobility

The narrow streets in the old village center can only be tackled on foot or by bike.

Tourist Attractions

Sights in the village

In the northeast of the village there are still large parts of the old village preserved and inhabited. The mostly two-story houses were built from adobe bricks and only partially plastered. The roof terrace is bordered with a small wall. The small windows are often open without any glazing. The doors have a wooden lintel beam, over which there is often a semicircular door closure. Some of the alleys have already been widened in recent years. There are also passages covered by a single-storey residential building, as you can find them again and again in the old villages. The village ensemble also includes sheik tombs, which can be easily identified from their semicircular domes.

In the south of the village, east of the trunk road, there is an interesting one 25.50805229.3411192 graveyard(25 ° 30 ′ 29 ″ N.29 ° 20 ′ 28 ″ E)). In its center is the unplastered grave of a sheikh made of adobe bricks. The graves around it have tombstones in the form of small houses.

Sights outside the village

About six to seven kilometers south of the village, before the police checkpoint, there are numerous sandstone hills on both sides of the road.

Probably the best known 25.46027229.3433083 rock(25 ° 27 '37 "N.29 ° 20 ′ 36 ″ E) has the shape of a camel that faces south and is on the western side of the road some distance from the road. Unfortunately, the bad habit is also spreading here to immortalize yourself here on the rock in large letters.

Some of the rocks in the area of ​​Darb el-Ghubbārī (as well as today's trunk road) or in the vicinity of the camel rock have graffiti of ancient and modern travelers. Due to the proximity to the street, the prehistoric graffiti on the west side of the street has just been lost.

Herbert Winlock already noted in his diary of May 11, 1908 that he saw prehistoric rock drawings of giraffes, antelopes and occasionally ostriches as well as other graffiti on the Wag to Tineida along the Darb el-Ghubbārī.^[10] This graffiti was first made in 1939 by the German ethnologist and orientalist Hans Alexander Winkler (1900–1945) recorded. Later investigations come from Ahmed Fakhry (1942), Pavel Červíček and Lisa L. Giddy. The themes included giraffes, camels and hunters from prehistoric times. People in pharaonic clothing, shepherds with cattle, a hunter with a bow and figures holding a standard belong to the Pharaonic period. Significantly more recent inscriptions include that of British governor Jarvis (1922) and that of a W.J. Lynham (1916).

While it is almost frustrating not to find any of the graffiti that once existed and documented on the west side of the street, there is still something like this on the east side of the street. The spots are even most of the locals Not known and can be preserved for the next few years. This is why it is very difficult to find a guide who knows the area. And you also need an all-terrain vehicle. Of course, the representations already mentioned include shepherds with cattle. One of the most important representations is certainly that of the god Amun night with a spear fighting an enemy surrounded by numerous gazelles.

The Temple of ʿAin Birbīya is described in a separate chapter.

accommodation

Accommodation is available in courage and in Qasr ed-Dachla.

trips

The visit of the village can be done with that of ʿAin Birbīya, Balāṭ and Qilāʿ eḍ-Ḍabba get connected.

literature

• Literature about the village:
  • Rohlfs, Gerhard: Three months in the Libyan desert. Cassel: Fisherman, 1875, P. 301 f. Reprint Cologne: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 1996, ISBN 978-3-927688-10-0 .
  • Museum Schloss Schönebeck (Ed.): Photographs from the Libyan desert: an expedition by the Africa explorer Gerhard Rohlfs in 1873/74, photographed by Philipp Remelé. Bremen: Ed. Temmen, 2002, ISBN 978-3861087915 , P. 70.

• Rock carvings south of the village:
  • Winkler, Hans A [Lexander]: Rock drawings of Southern Upper Egypt; 2: Including 'Uwēnât: Sir Robert Mond desert expedition. London: The Egypt Exploration Society; Oxford University Press, 1939, Archaeological survey of Egypt, P. 8, site 68.
  • Červíček, Pavel: Rock pictures of upper Egypt and Nubia. Roma: Herder, 1986, Annali / Istituto Universitario Orientale: Supplemento; 46, Pp. Sites 61-69.
  • Giddy, Lisa L.: Egyptian oases: Baḥariya, Dakhla, Farafra and Kharga during Pharaonic times. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1987, Pp. 256 f., 262, 283-289.

Individual evidence