Bitter lakes
| Bitter lakes | ||
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| The Große Bittersee - the Kleine Bittersee (southeast, on the picture below right) can no longer be seen | ||
| Geographical location | Isthmus of Suez | |
| Places on the shore | Fayed | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 30 ° 20 ' N , 32 ° 23' E | |
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| surface | 220 km² | |
| length | 23.2 km | |
| width | 10.8 km | |
The bitter lakes are an elongated, salt - water- filled lake basin in Egypt on the Isthmus of Suez between the northern and southern parts of the Suez Canal and the villages of Ismailia and Ash-Schaluf (at km 95 to km 156).
geography
This lake basin consists of the Great Bitter Lake ( Arabic البحيرة المرة الكبرى, DMG al-Buḥaira al-Murra al-Kubrā ) and the small bitter lake adjoining it in the southeast (البحيرة المرة الصغرى, DMG al-Buḥaira al-Murra aṣ-Ṣuġrā ), which are connected to one another by a 500–1000 m wide narrowing and are each provided with lighthouses at the entry and exit . Together the lakes have a surface area of around 220 to 250 km². The Große Bittersee measures more than 30 km from northwest to southeast and after a more than 6 km long stretch to the east it merges into the Kleiner Bittersee, which is about 8 km long in a north-south direction. At the southern end, the Great Bitter Lake forms a pronounced bay about 5 km in diameter and divided by a few islands. Both lakes are surrounded by deserts all around, some agriculture is practiced on the western and southwestern banks. At asch-Schaluf , at the southern end of the bitter lakes, the ebb and flow of the Red Sea are already noticeable, which is reached at km 156. In front of the actual bitter lakes over 30 km to the north there is a smaller lake near the village of Ismailia called Timsahsee , which is used by the ships as a diversion just like the larger lakes.
The bitter lakes were previously connected to the Red Sea and were only separated from it by raising a section north of Suez. Then they dried up to 10 m below the level of the Red Sea. By creating the Suez Canal, the bitter lakes were brought back to their old level. Since the canal has no locks , seawater flows from both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea into the lake basin, replacing water lost through evaporation. The lakes also act as level compensation for the canal by compensating for tidal currents.
history
In Roman times, the waterway to India and the eastern Roman province of Arabia Petraea was made easier by the fact that under Emperor Trajan around 100 AD, work on the Bubastis Canal was resumed, or a new connecting canal from today's Cairo ( Babylon ) via Bilbeis to ancient Bubastis Canal was made. In honor of Trajan, he is known as Amnis Trajanus or Amnis Augustus . Opposite the Ptolemaic city of Arsinoë, Trajan built the fortified port of Klysma ( Cleopatris , later Kolzum ). This restoration of the 84 km long Bubastis Canal between the Nile and the Red Sea , begun by Pharaoh Necho II and completed by Darius I , created a continuous water connection from Rome to certain Indian port cities. Roman trade with India was based on the port of Myos Hormos , which, along with Berenike (Baranis), had already been the starting point for trade expeditions in the Ptolemaic Empire . With the Trajan Canal, a direct ship connection to the eastern Roman province of Arabia Petraea was created, which simplified the transport of goods. The Trajan Canal was also maintained and used under Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD). At the time of the death of Emperor Trajan in AD 117, Rome ruled all the ports of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Trade from Egypt to the south and east had reached its peak.
In 1870 the depth of the Great Bitter Lake was given as 22-29 feet and that of the Small Bitter Lake was 26 feet. Measurements were taken in the fairway, which was probably the greatest depth.
During the Second World War , the two Italian battleships RN Italia (ex RN Littorio ) and RN Vittorio Veneto and their crews and their crews from the autumn of that year until 1946 were in accordance with the armistice agreed by the Allies with Italy (see Armistice of Cassibile ) of September 8, 1943 large bitter lake interned.
In the area around the bitter lakes, German prisoners of war were held in some camps until 1948.
On February 14, 1945, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt , coming straight from the Yalta Conference , met the Saudi Arabian King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud on the Great Bitter Lake . The meeting on board the American cruiser USS Quincy was arranged by the American diplomat William Alfred Eddy , a friend of the Saudi Arabian king.
After the outbreak of the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli troops advanced to the north-western bank of the Bitter Lakes on June 8th. As a result, the Suez Canal was closed by Egypt, as a result of which 14 merchant ships were stranded in the bitter lakes and could only continue to sail in 1975. They became known as the Yellow Fleet because of the desert sand that soon covered their decks . Among them were two German ships, the Münsterland and the Nordwind . During the years of the blockade, the ship's crews issued postage stamps that were accepted by the Egyptian post office. Today they are very popular among collectors.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hadwiga Schörner: Artificial shipping channels in antiquity. In: Skyllis - Journal for Underwater Archeology , Volume 3, Issue 1, 2000, pp. 38–43.
- ^ Wilhelm David Koner: Present depth of the Suez Canal . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin , Volume 5, 1870, pp. 84–86 ( Wikisource )
- ↑ The German prisoners of war of the Second World War (Egypt). Kriegsgefangen.de, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 ; Retrieved June 11, 2014 .
- ↑ Hans Jürgen Witthöft : Between the fronts. Bitter Lake - triumphant homecoming after eight years . In: Marineforum , 2-2015, pp. 23-25.