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Wadi El Natrun

Wadi El Natrun (Arabic: وادي النطرون "Valley of Natron"; Coptic: Ϣⲓϩⲏⲧ Šihēt, "measure of the hearts"[2]) is a depression in northern Egypt that is located 23 m (75 ft) below sea level and 38 m (125 ft) below the Nile River level. The valley contains several alkaline lakes, natron-rich salt deposits, salt marshes and freshwater marshes.[3]

Wadi El Natrun
  • ϣⲓϩⲏⲧ (Coptic)
  • وادي النطرون (Arabic)

265.7 sq mi (688.2 km2)

88,380

330/sq mi (130/km2)

In Christian literature it is usually known as Scetis (Σκήτις in Hellenistic Greek) or Skete (Σκήτη, plural Σκήτες in ecclesiastical Greek). It is one of the three early Christian monastic centers located in the Nitrian Desert of the northwestern Nile Delta.[4] The other two monastic centers are Nitria and Kellia.[4] Scetis, now called Wadi El Natrun, is best known today because its ancient monasteries remain in use, unlike Nitria and Kellia which have only archaeological remains.[4] The desertified valley around Scetis in particular may be called the Desert of Scetis.[5]

Fossil discoveries[edit]

The area is one of the best known sites containing large numbers of fossils of large pre-historic animals in Egypt, and was known for this in the first century AD and probably much earlier.[6]

Geography[edit]

Wadi al-Natrun is the common name for a desert valley located west of the Nile Delta, along the El Tahrir markaz, which is about 10 km west of the entrance to Sadat City on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, and about 50 km from Khattabah on the Nile (Rashid Branch), and it falls below the level of the plateau surface surrounding it about 50 meters. The length of this depression ranges between 5, 55 and 60 km, while its average width is 10 km, and its deepest point reaches 24 meters below sea level. The depression is the smallest depression in the Egyptian Western Desert, with an area of about 500 km2. Therefore, it is true that it is a depression and not a valley, because the region is a closed depression that has a beginning and an end, and it has no source, estuary or tributaries, so the launch of the word "Wadi" on the depression is not topographically correct.[7]


The Wadi contains 12 lakes, the total surface area of which is 10 km square and their average depth is only 2 m. The color of these lakes is reddish blue because its water is saturated with the Natron salt.[8]

Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great

Paromeos Monastery

Monastery of Saint Pishoy

Syrian Monastery

Monastery of Saint Pishoy, Scetes, Egypt

Monastery of Saint Pishoy, Scetes, Egypt

Monastery of Saint Pishoy, Scetes, Egypt

Monastery of Saint Pishoy, Scetes, Egypt

Frescos at the Syrian Monastery, Scetes, Egypt

Frescos at the Syrian Monastery, Scetes, Egypt

Frescos at the Syrian Monastery, Scetes, Egypt

Frescos at the Syrian Monastery, Scetes, Egypt

Naba' El-Hamra Lake

Naba' El-Hamra Lake

Skete

Door of Prophecies

Pikrolimni (lake)

Pachomian monasteries

M. Cappozzo, I monasteri del deserto di Scete, Todi 2009 (Tau Editore).

UNESCO World Heritage Centre 1992–2012

The monasteries of the Arab Desert and Wadi Natrun