Batn-El-Hajar or ''Belly of Stones'' is a reach of approximately 160 km in length stretching from the Dal

Cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens (anatomy), lens of the eye that leads to a visual impairment, decrease in vision of the eye. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colours, blurry or ...

of the

Nile The Nile (also known as the Nile River or River Nile) is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa. It has historically been considered the List of river sy ...

downriver to the now under Lake Nubia submerged Second Cataract in present-day

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

History

''Batn-El-Hajar'' is a barren and granite-rich landscape limiting arable soil and, thus, sparsely inhabited. It was the traditional border between

Upper Nubia Upper Nubia (also called Kush) is the southernmost part of Nubia, upstream on the Nile from Lower Nubia. It is so called because the Nile flows north, so it is further upstream and of higher elevation in relation to Lower Nubia. The extension of '' ...

and

Lower Nubia Lower Nubia (also called Wawat) is the northernmost part of Nubia, roughly contiguous with the modern Lake Nasser, which submerged the historical region in the 1960s with the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Many ancient Lower Nubian monuments, ...

. In this area are a number of important

A-Group The A-Group was the first powerful society in Nubia, located in modern northern Sudan and southern Egypt and flourished between the First and Second Cataracts of the Nile in Lower Nubia. It lasted from the 4th millennium BC, reached its climax ...

and Meroitics archeological sites.D. N. Edwards and A. J. Mills; 'Pharaonic' Sites in the Batn el-Hajar - the 'Archaeological Survey of Sudanese Nubia' Revisited; in: ''Sudan & Nubia'' No 17, published by The Sudan Archaeological Research Society; 2013.

References

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