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What is a cataract on the Nile river?
The Cataracts of the Nile are shallow lengths (or whitewater rapids) of the Nile River, between Khartoum and Aswan, where the surface of the water is broken by many small boulders and stones jutting out of the river bed, as well as many rocky islets.
How many cataracts are in the Nile river?
six
In the south, the Nile has a series of six main cataracts, which begin at the site of Aswan. A cataract is a shallow stretch of turbulent waters formed where flowing waters encounter resistant rock layers.
What does the word cataract mean in ancient Egypt?
In fact, “cataract” means both an opacity of the lens and a torrent of water and is derived from the Greek word kataráktēs meaning the fall of water. A wall painting in an ancient tomb at Thebes (about 1200 B.C.) seems to reveal the treatment of an eye by an oculist.
Who lived beyond the Nile cataracts?
Nubia is traditionally divided into two regions. The southern portion, which extended north to the southern end of the second cataract of the Nile was known as Upper Nubia; this was called Kush (Cush) under the 18th-dynasty pharaohs of ancient Egypt and was called Ethiopia by the ancient Greeks.
What are the two main sources of the Nile river?
What are the two main rivers that flow into the River Nile? The River Nile is formed from the White Nile, which originates at Lake Victoria and the Blue Nile, which originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
When was the first cataract in the Nile built?
The first cataract, one of the six classic cataracts along the Nile (there are many more), was well-suited for a dam site — the Aswan Dam was built here between 1898 and 1902.
Where is the third cataract in the Nile River?
The Third Cataract is at Tombos /Hannek. ( / 19.76; 30.37 ( Third Cataract) The Fourth Cataract is in the Manasir Desert, and since 2008, is submerged under the reservoir of Merowe Dam. ( / 18.91; 32.36 ( Fourth Cataract)
When did Churchill see the Cataracts of the Nile?
The six cataracts of the Nile are depicted extensively by European visitors, notably by Winston Churchill in The River War (1899), where he recounts the exploits of the British trying to return to the Sudan between 1896 and 1898, after they were forced to leave in 1885.
Where are the fifth and sixth cataracts located?
The Fifth Cataract is near the confluence of the Nile and Atbarah Rivers. ( / 17.677; 33.970 ( Fifth Cataract) The Sixth Cataract is where the Nile cuts through the Sabaluka pluton, close to Bagrawiyah. ( / 16.288; 32.671 ( Sixth Cataract)