The Siwa Oasis ( ) is an urban oasis in Egypt. It is situated between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert, east of the Egypt–Libya border and from the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. It is famed for its role in ancient Egypt as the home to an oracle of Amun, the ruins of which are a popular tourist attraction, giving it the ancient name Oasis of Amun-Ra, after the major Egyptian deity.
Geography The oasis is in a deep depression that reaches below sea level. To the west, the al Jaghbub Oasis rests in a similar depression and to the east, the large Qattara Depression is also below sea level. The depression is fertile due to both natural flowing artesian wells and irrigation. It is the site of about 200 natural springs. Siwa is directly adjacent to the Libyan Desert plateau. The geology is characterised by horizontal layers of porous limestones alternated with marls and clays dating back to the Miocene. The limestone plateau and inselbergs resulting from the oasis' erosion along the dunes create reliefs that the Isiwan describe as mountains (adrar in Tamazight). Two large salt lakes are fed by drainage water of agricultural origin. The oasis supports the cultivation of thousands of date palms and olives. Siwa has a temperate desert climate.
Name
The Ancient Egyptian name of the oasis was sḫt jꜣmw, meaning "Field of Trees". The native Libyan toponym may be preserved in the Egyptian t̠ꜣ(j) n d̠rw "tꜣj on the fringe" where t̠ꜣ transcribed the local Palaeo-Berber name *Se or *Sa. This name survived in the works of Muslim geographers as Santariyyah.
Siwah is the Arabic name of the oasis called Sali in Berber. The oasis is also called Isiwan in modern Berber.
The etymology of the word سيوة Siwah is unclear. Champollion derives it from Coptic ⲥⲟⲟⲩϩ (soouh) – a corruption of the Egyptian word for "oasis", ⲟⲩⲁϩ (ouoh). The additional evidence of the Egyptian source of Siwa's name is another place name in Kharga Oasis that may share the same etymology – S.t-wȝḥ, modern Deir el-Hagar). Basset links it to a Berber tribal name swh attested further west in the early Islamic period, while Ilahiane, following Chafik, links it to the Shilha Berber word asiwan, a type of bird of prey, and hence to Amun-Ra, one of whose symbols was the falcon. Some classical authors referred to the site as "Ammonium".Howatson, M.C. Oxford companion to classical literature. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013, 626.
History Although the site is known to have been settled since at least the 10th millennium BCE, the earliest evidence of any connection with Ancient Egypt is the 26th Dynasty, when a necropolis was established. Ancient Greek settlers at Cyrene made contact with the oasis around the same time (7th century BCE), and the oracle temple of Amun (Greek: Zeus Ammon), who, Herodotus was told, took the image here of a ram. Herodotus knew of a "fountain of the Sun" that ran coldest in the noontime heat.Herodotus, Histories, iv (on-line text). During his campaign to conquer the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great reached the oasis, supposedly by following birds across the desert. The oracle, Alexander's court historians alleged, confirmed him as both a divine personage and the legitimate Pharaoh of Egypt, though Alexander's motives in making the excursion, following his founding of Alexandria, remain to some extent inscrutable and contested.Alexander the Great, Robin Lane Fox, Allen Lane 1973/ Penguin 1986–2004, pp. 200–18 During the Ptolemaic Kingdom, its Ancient Egyptian name was sḫ.t-ỉm3w, meaning "Field of Trees".Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, ed. Adolf Erman, Hermann Grapow. Vol. IV, p. 230; Vol. VI, p. 141
In the 12th century, Al-Idrisi mentions it as being inhabited mainly by Berbers, with an Arab minority; a century earlier, Al-Bakri stated that only Berbers lived there. The Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi travelled to Siwa in the 15th century and described how the language spoken there 'is similar to the language of the Zenata'.
The first European to document a visit since Roman times was the English traveller William George Browne, who came in 1792 to see the ancient temple of the Oracle of Amun. Bompiani, in her description of the 19th-century explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti, called this site the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon.Italian Explorers in Africa, by Sofia Bompiani, London (1891); page 169.
Siwa was annexed by Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1820, but the Egyptian representative in Siwa was assassinated in 1838. At some point, Muhammad al-Sanusi stayed at Siwa for a few months and gathered some followers there. Later, Siwa was a base of the Sanusiyya in their fight against the British from 1915 to 1917. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1893, German explorer and photographer Hermann Burchardt took photographs of the architecture of the town of Siwa, now stored at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.Siwa, viewed from the east, by Hermann Burchardt; Siwa, eastern part; Siwa, western part; Siwa, viewed from the south; Siwa, main street.
Egyptian rule from distant Cairo was at first tenuous and marked by several revolts. Egypt began to assert firmer control after a 1928 visit to the oasis by King Fuad I, who berated the locals for homosexual practices and specified punishments to bring Siwan behaviour in line with Egyptian morals.
Siwa was also the site of some fighting during World War I and World War II. The British Army's Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) was based here, but Rommel's Afrika Korps also took possession three times. German soldiers went skinny dipping in the lake of the oracle, contrary to local customs which prohibit public nudity. In 1942, while the Italian 136th Infantry Division Giovani Fascisti occupied the oasis, a tiny Egyptian puppet government-in-exile was set up at Siwa. The oasis makes a brief appearance as a base of the LRDG in the 1958 war film Ice Cold in Alex.
The ancient fortress of Siwa, known as the Shali Ghadi (Shali being the name of the town, and Ghadi meaning "remote"), was built on natural rock (an inselberg) and made of kershif (salt and mud-brick) and palm logs. After it was damaged by three days of heavy rains in 1926 it was abandoned for similar unreinforced construction housing on the plain surrounding it, and in some cases those, in turn, have been replaced by more modern cinder block and sheet metal roof buildings. Only one building in the Shali complex, a mosque, has been repaired and is in use. Gradually eroded by infrequent rains and slowly collapsing, the Shali remains a prominent feature, towering five stories above the modern town and lit at night by floodlights. It is most easily approached from its southwest side, south of the end of the paved road which curves around from the north side of the Shali. Several uneven pedestrian streets lead from the southwest end of the Shali into it, and the ground is split in places by deep cracks. Many of the unreinforced kershif buildings bordering the streets of the Shali are also split by large cracks, or they are partially collapsed.
Other local historic sites of interest include the remains of the oracle temple; the Gebel al Mawta (the Mountain of the Dead), a Roman-era necropolis featuring dozens of rock-cut tombs; and "Cleopatra's Bath", an antique natural spring. The fragmentary remains of the oracle temple, with some inscriptions dating from the 4th century BCE, lie within the ruins of Aghurmi. The revelations of the oracle fell into disrepute under the Roman rule over Egypt.
Climate Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh), as the rest of Egypt. The area might experience temperatures above as early as March due to the extreme heat burst brought by the Khamsin wind. The highest temperature ever recorded occurred on June 13, 1965 with a value of ."EMA_Extremes">>
Culture
The traditional culture of Siwa shows many unique elements, some reflecting its longstanding links with the isolated oasis life and the fact that the inhabitants are Siwi Berbers. There are 10 tribes in Siwa that speak an eastern Berber language (Siwi). These tribes have their own cultures and ideals. Until a tarmac road was built to the Mediterranean coast in the 1980s Siwa's only links with the outside world were by arduous camel tracks through the desert. These were used to export dates and olives, bring trade goods, or carry pilgrims on the route which linked the Maghreb to Cairo and hence to Mecca.
As a result of this isolation, Siwis developed a unique natural culture manifested in its crafts of basketry, pottery, silverwork and embroidery and in its style of dress. The most visible and celebrated examples of this were the bridal silver and the ensemble of silver ornaments and beads that women wore in abundance to weddings and other ceremonies.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver, 71, 79–83. These pieces were decorated with symbols which related to Siwa's history and beliefs and attitudes.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver: Jewellery, Costume and Life in Siwa Oasis, London:Kelim
The arrival of the road and of television exposed the oasis to the styles and fashions of the outside world and the traditional silver ornaments were gradually replaced by jewelry made of gold. Evidence of the old styles and traditions are however still in evidence in the women's embroidery and costume.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver The material for the "tarfutet", the distinctive all-enveloping shawl worn by women, are brought from outside the oasis, specifically from the town of Kirdasa in the Giza Governorate.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver, p. 44
Jewelry The best known of these pieces is a huge silver disc called 'adrim' and a round necklace, called 'aghraw', from which it hung over the breast. A girl would give up the disc at a special ceremony in the spring the day she was married. The jewelry, which was made by local silversmiths, consisted of silver necklaces, earrings, bangles, hair ornaments, pendants, and many rings.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver, xiv, 32, 79–81, 87–99, 101–7. For a wealthy woman, the full ensemble could weigh as much as five or six kilos. These pieces are decorated with symbols common to Berber people across North Africa designed to promote good health, fertility and to protect the wearer from misfortune. Some of the same signs and patterns are found on the embroidery which embellishes women's dresses, trousers, and shawls.Margaret Mary Vale, 2011, Sand and Silver, 61–70.
Festivals Siwi people are very religious, so on Ramadan, they tend to close all the shops and stay at home for the whole month. Like other Muslim Egyptians, Siwis celebrate Eid al-Fitr (lʕid ahakkik,"the Little Eid") and Eid al-Adha (lʕid azuwwar,"the Big Eid"). Unlike other Egyptians on Eid al-Adha, however, Siwis cook the skin of the sheep (along with its innards) as a festival delicacy, after removing the hair.Ahmed Fakhry. 1973. Siwa Oasis, Cairo: AUC, p. 64 They also eat heart of palm (agroz).Fathi Malim. 2001. Oasis Siwa: from the Inside. Traditions, customs, and magic. Al Katan / Dar al Kutub. p. 34