Prehistory The first contacts between the pharaonic power and the oases started around 2550 BCE. The human history of this oasis started during the
Pleistocene, when
nomadic tribes sometimes settled there, in a time when the
Sahara climate was wetter and where humans could have access to lakes and marshes. About 6,000 years ago, the entire Sahara became drier, changing progressively into a hyper-arid desert (with less than 50 mm of rain per year). However, specialists think that nomadic hunter-gatherers began to settle almost permanently in the oasis of Dakhleh in the period of the
Holocene (about 12,000 years ago), during new, but rare episodes of wetter times. The drier climate didn't mean that there was more water than today in what is now known as the Western Desert. The south of the Libyan Desert has the most important supply of subterranean water in the world through the
Nubian Aquifer, and the first inhabitants of the Dakhla Oasis had access to surface water sources. In the 3rd millennium BC the probably nomadic people of the
Sheikh Muftah culture lived there.
Pharaonic period During the late
6th Dynasty,
hieratic script was sometimes incised into clay tablets with a
stylus, similar to
cuneiform. About five hundred such tablets have been discovered in the governor's palace at Ayn Asil (Balat) in the Dakhla Oasis. At the time the tablets were made, Dakhla was located far from centers of
papyrus production. These tablets record inventories, name-lists, accounts, and approximately fifty letters.
Deir el-Hagar Deir el-Hagar (
Egyptian Arabic: 'Monastery of Stone', ,
Sioua) is a Roman sandstone temple on the western edge of Dakhla Oasis, about 10 km from Qasr ad-Dakhla. The Temple was erected during the reign of the Roman Emperor
Nero, and decorated during the time of
Vespasian,
Titus and
Domitian. The temple was dedicated to the Theban triad, composed of
Amun-Ra,
Mut and
Khonsu, as well as to
Seth, the main deity of the region. File:DeirHagarGateway2.jpg|Gateway of the temple File:Deir el-Haggar, Entrance Relief (XI) (4566138968).jpg|Roman emperor as pharaoh making offerings to Isis and Osiris File:DeirHagarSarapammon.jpg|Graffiti of Sarapammon with ram and baboon
Qasr ad-Dakhla The fortified Islamic town of
Qasr ad-Dakhla or
el-Qasr (
Arabic: قصر الداخلة,
the Fortress) was built in the 12th century on the remains of a Roman fort in the NW of the Dakhla Oasis by the
Ayyubid kings. Many of the up to four-storey mud brick
Ottoman and
Mamluk buildings contain blocks of stone with hieroglyphics from the ancient
Thoth temple of the nearby site of
Amheida. The three-storey, 21-meter-high minaret is dated 924 CE. File:El-Qasr (XII).jpg|General view of Qasr el-Dakhla File:Flickr - Argenberg - Al-Qasr city, Dakhla oasis (2007-05-219).jpg|Streets of Al-Qasr File:Bahariyya Oasis, Egypt.jpg|Abuyyid minaret File:DakhlaQasrLintel.jpg|Lintel in Qasr el-Dakhla File:DakhlaQasrHieroglyphs.jpg|Hieroglyphic inscriptions File:DakhlaQasrNasrMosqueInside.jpg|Inside the Nasr el-Din mosque File:House in Al-Qasr, Egypt.jpg|Clay house
After 1800 Sir
Archibald Edmonstone visited Dakhla oasis in the year 1819. Some of the tombs are completely large containing several burial chambers, while one tomb has a roof built in the shape of a pyramid and some of them with vaulted roofs. == Geography ==