St. John's Island

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St. John's Island
Zabargad.jpg
Waters Red Sea
Geographical location 23 ° 36 '35 "  N , 36 ° 11' 45"  E Coordinates: 23 ° 36 '35 "  N , 36 ° 11' 45"  E
St. John's Island (Egypt)
St. John's Island
length 3.5 km
width 2.8 km
surface 4.5 km²
Highest elevation 235  m
Residents uninhabited

The St. John's Island ( Zabargad , Arabic جزيرة الزبرجد) in the Red Sea near Berenike was already known in antiquity. The Arabic name is derived from the word for peridot . She belongs to Egypt .

geography

St. John's Island is located in the southeast of the al-Bahr al-ahmar Governorate in southeast Egypt, about 100 km from the border with Sudan . The island is located in a bay that is called Foul Bay in English and is the largest of several islands located there with an area of ​​4.5 square kilometers. The distance to the mainland is a good 65 km. The highest point is 235 m.

The precious olivine peridot is embedded in peridotites on Zabargad , which were formed at great depths, but then quickly reached the surface of the earth. Peridot has been documented by finds in Egypt since the 18th dynasty. According to Arab authors, the peridot mines were exhausted in the middle of the 13th century and were still lying idle in 1829. The khedive entrusted their exploitation to a French consortium, which drove them to greater depth.

Realgar , a yellow arsenic-based dye ( sandaraca ), also comes from Topazos, according to Pliny (35, 39).

The uninhabited island is important as a bird breeding site and has been declared part of the Gebel Elba National Park . However, it is increasingly suffering - under and above water - from tourism.

history

Pliny the Elder (HN VI, 29 (34, 169) knows an island called Topazos, which gave the gem its name. According to Juba , it is 300 stadia (35 nautical miles) from the mainland and is often hidden by fog The name is troglodytic topaxine and means “to look for” (ibid., 38, 8). He also mentions an island called Cytis / Citis as the source of the topazes. It was discovered by troglodytic sailors who went off course. This island, however, was located in Bab al-Mandab . Pliny describes an island in the Red Sea as a source of green topaz , presumably a confusion with the peridot of Zabargad. In the Periplus Maris Erythraei (40-70 AD) an island is opposite of Berenike Mentioned as a source of peridotum (olivine), which was important in the Indian trade. Strabon (XVI, 4, 6) mentions a snake island ( Ophiodes ) in the bay opposite Berenike or Ras Benas . It was so named because it was here many snakes lived, this one became but driven out by the king because they had killed sailors, and because of the topazes found on this island. The same story can be found in Diodorus Siculus (III, 39), who names the "kings of Alexandria ", probably the Hellenistic rulers, as the chasers of snakes. Since the island was never connected to the mainland, but consists of pressed deep rock, the absence of snakes is quite believable.

The archaeologist George William Murray wants to equate the island with the "Isle of Agathon" ( Agathon Insula ) of Ptolemy . The Egyptologist Gerald Avery Wainwright believes that the ancient Egyptian fairy tale of the shipwrecked sailor also refers to Zabargad.

literature

  • GA Wainwright: Zeberged. The shipwrecked sailor's Island. In: The Journal of Egyptian Archeology. 32, 1946, ISSN  0075-4234 , pp. 31-38.
  • George Faldo Hourani: Arab seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and early medieval times. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1951 ( Princeton oriental studies 13, ZDB -ID 419062-2 ).
  • DE Eichholz: Some mineralogical problems in Theophrastus' De Lapidibus. In: The Classical Quarterly. NS 17, 1, 1967, ISSN  0009-8388 , pp. 103-109.
  • GWB Huntingford (Ed.): The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea by an unknown author. With some extracts from Agatharkhidēs "On the Erythraean sea". Hakluyt Society, London 1980, ISBN 0-904180-05-0 ( Works issued by Hakluyt Society. 2. ser. 151).
  • E. Bonatti, R. Clocchiatti, P. Colantoni, R. Gelmini, G. Marinelli, G. Ottonello, R. Santacroce, M. Taviani, AA Abdel-Meguid, HS Assaf, MA El Tahir: Zabargad (St. John's) Iceland. An uplifted fragment of sub-Red Sea lithosphere. In: Journal Geological Society. 140, August 1983, ISSN  0016-7649 , pp. 677-690.
  • G. Curate: Geology and Geochemistry of the Island of Zabargad (Egypt, Red Sea). In: Communications from the Austrian Mineralogical Society. 137, 1992, ISSN  1609-0144 , pp. 89-98.
  • G. Kurat u. a .: Petrology and geochemistry of peridotites and associated vein rocks of Zabargad Island, Red Sea, Egypt. In: Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology. 48, 2-4, 1993, ISSN  0930-0708 , pp. 309-341.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GA Wainwright, Zeberged: The shipwrecked sailor's Iceland. Journal of Egyptian Archeology 32, 1946, 32
  2. ↑ GA Wainwright, Zeberged: The shipwrecked sailor's Iceland. Journal of Egyptian Archeology 32, 1946, 32
  3. ^ GW Murray, The Roman roads and stations in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Journal of Egyptian Archeology 11 / 3-4, 1925, 140
  4. ↑ GA Wainwright, Zeberged: The shipwrecked sailor's Iceland. Journal of Egyptian Archeology 32, 1946, 31