Mount Arkanu or Jabal Arkanu (also Jebel Arkenu or Gebel Árchenu) is a mountain in

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...

Geography

The mountain is located in the

Libyan Desert The Libyan Desert (not to be confused with the Libyan Sahara) is a geographical region filling the north-eastern Sahara Desert, from eastern Libya to the Western Desert of Egypt and far northwestern Sudan. On medieval maps, its use predates t ...

in the

Kufra District Kufra or Kofra ( ar, الكفرة '), also spelled ''Cufra'' in Italian, is the largest district of Libya. Its capital is Al Jawf, one of the oases in Kufra basin. There is a very large oil refinery near the capital. In the late 15th century, ...

of Libya, about 300 km southeast of

El Tag El Tag (; also ''Al-Tag'', ''Al-Taj'') is a village and holy site in the Kufra Oasis, within the Libyan Desert subregion of the Sahara. It is in the Kufra District in the southern Cyrenaica region of southeastern Libya. The Arabic ''el tag'' trans ...

.Bertarelli (1929), p. 515 and about 70 km west of Arkanu and the two

Arkenu structures The Arkenu structures, also known as the Arkenu craters, are a pair of prominent circular geological structures in eastern Libya. The structures are approximately and in diameter, and lie about west of Jabal Arkanu on the eastern margin of the ...

. Its height is , rising about 500 m above the surrounding

Gilf Kebir Gilf Kebir () (var. Gilf al-Kebir, Jilf al Kabir, Gilf Kebir Plateau) is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier". This sandstone plateau, ro ...

plateau and a valley- oasis. Mount Arkanu is long and wide. Google Earth Arkanu's existence has been known since 1892 through Arab sources. Arkanu was first discovered in 1923 by

Ahmed Hassanein Ahmed Hassanein Pasha, KCVO, MBE () (31 October 1889 – 19 February 1946) or Aḥmad Moḥammad Makhlūf Ḥasanēn al-Būlākī () was an Egyptian courtier, diplomat, politician, and geographic explorer. Hassanein was the tutor, Chief of th ...

. The mountain consists of intrusive

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

. The valley is 15 km long and oriented east-west. The valley has a green environment consisting of bushes, grass and some trees. Arkenu

Arkanu is used as a pasture. Each year the Bedouins bring their herds to the valley, leave them there and block the entrance (located at a height of ) with rocks. They return three months later to retrieve their cattle.

Sources

Notes

External links

Jabal Arkanu

Jabal Arkanu on Peakbagger
{{Mountains of Libya Cyrenaica Arkanu