Barkal mountain / Jebel Barkal

Sudan / as-Samaliyah / Kurimah /
 mountain, hill, place with historical importance, archaeological site, UNESCO World Heritage Site, historic landmark
Jebel Barkal lies on the right bank of the Nile at the approximate mid-point of the river's great bend, about 325 km NNE of Khartoum (aerial photo, fig. 1). It is a small isolated sandstone butte on the western edge of Karima, and stands about 2 km from the river, which it confronts with a spectacular cliff 200 m long. The mountain's height, measured from the ancient floor level of the Great Amun Temple (B 500), is 104.5 m.; the cliff is between 80 and 95 m. high. The mountain is an anomaly in the local landscape, for, apart from its sheer cliff, it stands in an otherwise flat desert plain, and it possesses an immense, free-standing pinnacle on its south corner that rises vertically 74.6 m. It was this last feature that distinguished the mountain from all others in the Nile Valley. Very early, it seems, all these unusual characteristics played on the minds of the ancients, who made Gebel Barkal the subject of intense theological speculation and identified it as a sacred site.
(wysinger.homestead.com/kendall.doc)
www.jebelbarkal.org/
Wikipedia article: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebel_Barkal
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   18°32'13"N   31°49'41"E

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  • Jebel Al-Barkal, a beacon across the desert
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