Jul 2, 2025
Chinguetti, Mauritania
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Chinguetti, Mauritania
chinguetti, mauritania
by mouhamedou ahmed
Chinguetti, Mauritania
Deserts in disguise
Desert sands
As far as you can see there is only sand, nothing but sand in the horizon.
Without any sense of direction you are literally lost in this enormous yellow kiln of burning sand and heat.
The wind here is exceptionally hot, to the extent that breathing itself becomes challenging beyond comparison.
In addition the wind carries with it a fine dust of yellow sand that strains the respiratory process even more.
At day time the temperature can reach beyond 50 degrees C here in the Sahara and without protection or shield from the blistering sun it becomes unendurable.
At night it is freezingly cold and the wind that just a while ago was blazing hot suddenly turns into ice.
Sand dune, Morocco
The Saharan landscape
The Sahara desert is the largest desert in the world.
Sahara’s topographical features includes not only the iconic sand dunes but also characteristics as acid mountains, plateaus, sand and gravel covered plains, shallow basins and deep oasis depressions.
Chad’s Mount Koussi is Sahara's highest point, as well as an extinct volcanic crater that rises 3.415 meters above sea level at its peak.
The lowest point is the Egyptian Qattera depression, an oasis that lies 133 meters below sea level at its deepest point.
The name Sahara comes from Arabic “Sahara” meaning desert.
The Sahara desert was not always as it is now, long ago rivers crisscrossed the area and it was a fertile region of rivers, lakes and waterways.
More specifically in the time of the Pharaohs the North African continent was interconnected by a network of water systems.
In this steppe landscape lions, gazelles, crocodiles, hippopotamus and giraffes ran freely, drank and swam in the rivers and lakes.
Ancient Egyptian culture prospered over thousands of years much thanks to the Nile river but also to the interconnected water network that made it much easier to travel through the country than it is nowadays.
The eastern desert ( east of the Nile ) was home to nomads before and during the Pharaonic era.
These nomads contributed to the development of the Pharaonic society by facilitating the routes to the Red Sea that contained an abundance of minerals and precious stones.
Granate, marble, amethyst, copper and gold and more, where amongst the stones and metals mined from the desert.
Ancient Egyptian Art
The two rivers
Sahara was desertified because of natural causes and not as a result of human activity.
Desertification is a process by which vegetation gradually disappears, usually as a cause of heat.
Nowadays the Sahara has only two major rivers the Nile and the Niger.
The Nile is a major north flowing river that begins in lake Victoria ( Uganda) and empties into the Mediterranean Sea.
It is the longest river in Africa and one of the longest in the world.
The second river is the Niger, it rises in west Africa, southwest of the Sahara and flows eastwards into Mali, then turns towards the southeast through Nigeria and empties into the Gulf of Guinea.
Furthermore Sahara has some 20 or more lakes but only one with potable water, the expansive but shallow lake Chad, a continually expanding and shrinking body of water in the southernmost edge of the Sahara in the country of Chad.
Sand dunes
The big surprise
The Sahara desert and the rest of the African continent is and has been for a longtime, in desperate need of potable water for drinking as well as for irrigation.
Famines and dirty, polluted drinking water is the cause of many deseas, death and a lot of suffering throughout Africa. More than 300 million people across Africa do not have access to clean drinking water.
Ironically this notoriously dry continent of Africa is actually sitting on a vast reservoir of clean groundwater!!!
Through modern technologies such as GIS and remote sensing it has been established, since decades, that huges amounts of drinking water exists under the Saharan sands.
These images of the Sahara can also tell us things about the history of the region.
Not only that it was green, fertile and that it is hiding large subterranean fossil water resources but you can also clearly see how the winds have shaped the landscape.
In the case of Egypt ( where most information is available) we can clearly see how the Nile has made Egypt grow during millions of years.
Moreover it shows how the Nile river has changed paths and taken different routes throughout the years.
Furthermore the images show that Egypt is made up of two different kinds of stone plateaus.
The older one is found in the south of Luxor and it is made of sandstone.
The younger one can be found north of Luxor and consists of limestone.
In ancient times Egypt had 5 rivers and the water of these rivers moved the sandstones from the south to the north, where you still can find traces of them today.
Later on when the water dried and the wind pushed the silicone back, calcium became visible.
We can also see, in these images, how the constant north-northwest winds have completely shaped the whole Egyptian landscape.
They also give clear information of where these underground water resources are located and their size.
Interestingly enough these concealed water supplies are not entirely fossil but are resupplied every year due to rain.
According to geologists, this is what happened: In ancient times, when the North African Sahara desert was flowing with rivers, lakes and other waterways a sudden geological phenomenon happened, something like an earthquake, an enormous crack or other geological reason that pushed the earth up and forced the waters down under the desert sand.
Earlier we mentioned Egypts resources but the rest of the Saharan countries also have their own treasures hidden under the sands.* See end of article.
Eye of the Sahara, Mauritania
The salt valley
In Mauritania, in the salt valley, close to the desert's surface, maybe half a meter under the sand we find salt and it is not any salt, it is the finest salt in the entirety of Africa.
Another interesting location in Mauritania is the village of Shankit or Chinguetti.
The village was overtaken by sand and almost buried under it but the obstinate villagers keep shuffling away the sand and planting palm trees in the periphery of their village.
The fight about the village is still ongoing!
This little village and its struggle against the sand is a UNESCO protectorate.
An enormous wealth of natural resources is hidden beneath the Saharan desert.
Many mineral deposits are formed, improved and preserved by geological processes that occur in arid lands as a consequence of climate. Groundwater leaches ore minerals and redeposits them in zones near the water table.
An excellent example and maybe the best of what the desert conceals and the most valuable of all is oil!
From the sub Saharan black gold as well as the rest of the world the Libyan oil is possibly the purest and best.
Ubari oasis, Libya
The mythical city of Zerzura (Kitab al Kanuz - Book of hidden treasures)
Another treasure but of a completely different kind is Zerzura, a mythical city that once existed in an oasis in Egypt.
Zerzura was long rumoured to have existed in the desert west of the Nile river in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, the authors spoke of a city which was “white as a dove” and called it “The oasis of little birds”.
In the kitab al kanuz, Zerzura is said to be a city in the Sahara full of treasures with a sleeping King and Queen.
The city is guarded by black giants who keep anyone from going in or coming out.
However this might be a reference to the black Tebu people, nomads in Chad and Libya whose ancestors used to raid oases out in the Sahara.
White dove
One of the most renowned and unforgiving places on earth, the Sahara, evokes a bittersweet sense of time and fate, of antiquity and a legend of wonder and mystery.
You never know what is hidden under the sands.
Are there more ancient cultures and civilizations to be found?
Sahara is more than just a desert, as so many things can be deceiving at first glance, this region too is a desert in disguise.
*Morocco- phosphate
Mauritania- iron, copper and salt
Algeria- iron, natural gas and oil
Tunisia- natural gas
Libya- natural gas
Egypt- granite, marble, copper, gold, precious stones, natural gas and oil
Further readings;
In search of Zerzura by Orde Wingate.
The hunt for Zerzura: the lost oasis and the desert war (2002)
by Saul Kelly.
The Hidden Oasis ( Bentham Books, 2009) byPaul Sussman.
In pirates of the Caribbean: The price of freedom,has a main story line setting on Zerzura as a base on slavery, from the point of view of Captain Jack Sparrow.
Geological information taken from Dr Farouk el Baaz.
Chinguetti, Mauritania
Chinguetti, Mauritania
Chinguetti, Mauritania