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the Tih Plateau in Sinai

The powerful Wadi al Arish, with its numerous sides ? valleys, has carved through the elevated land and drains the Tih Plateau in die south. Like branches of a tree, die valleys meet in die main wadi creating a ?trunk? that heads northward to the Mediterranean coast. It is amazing how such an extended valley system could emerge from this desert land, and in fact it is a fossil drainage system from the rainy Ice Age.
Travelers who use the highway from the Suez Canal tunnel to Taba will cross these wadis repeatedly. Especially fascinating are the valley crossings in the area around Nakhl. Important springs, which have always determined the routes of travel, are located at the old caravan stations of Nakhl, Bir Hasana, Bir Gafgafa, Bir Rod Salim, and Bir al-Thamada.

The Tih plateau gradually ascends from north to south and pushes on a semicircular front into southern Sinai. This is the least developed part of Sinai and is best crossed by camel. Old pilgrim paths like the Darb al-Hagg and the Darb al-Shawi cross the desert from west to east and still make up parts of the modern roads leading from the Canal runnel over the Mitla Pass, through Nakhl and al-Thamad, to the steep descent to Eilat. Not far from the Mitla Pass, Salah al-Din, Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, built the fortress of Qal'at al-Gundi on an imposing, deeply-fissured limestone mountain. This fortress protected the pilgrims who came from Wadi Sidr to meet the pilgrimage routes to the east.

The Tih Plateau, bounded on the southwest by the Gabal al-Tih and on the southeast by the Gabal al-Igma, has recently been designated by geologists the Gabal al-Tih-Igma-Plateau. At the southern edge of the plateau it becomes clear that what was apparently a high plateau is in reality a slowly rising slope which suddenly ends at Gabal al-Tih or Gabal al-Igma, where it drops straight down for up to 700 meters and offers a splendid view toward the south. After a narrow plain covered with yellow-red sand come mountains consisting of stratified sandstone. On the tilted Sinai slab, these strata sink under the chalk layers of the Tih fault. The age of these fossil rocks is difficult to determine; all that is certain is that they date from a very long deposition period of approximately 350 million years (from the Carboniferous to the Cretaceous periods).
Behind the sandstone elevations in the south, the jagged peaks of the Sinai central massif are clearly visible under the bright blue sky. Spontaneously the eye tries to make out the peaks of Mount Sinai and Gabal Katrin. The view reveals the oldest history of the earth, for erosion has exposed the roots of the mountains, Precambrian rocks that rose as melted magma from the bowels of the earth 1,000 million years ago.

Before we turn finally to the dramatic southern part of Sinai, let us return to the Tih fault and its border areas. The steep face is so precipitous that it is a genuine, nearly insurmountable barrier. Only a few small serpentine paths make descent possible. Here the thick sequence of stratified chalk is visible, under which the older, southerly-exposed sandstone disappears. This sandstone belt dividing northern Sinai from the high central massif of southern Sinai has been important to humans for ages. In the western part are turquoise, malachite, and copper deposits that were mined by ancient Egyptians. The most famous turquoise finds are at Serabit al-Khadim and the caves of Maghara. Important copper mines existed, for example, near Bir Nasib and in Wadi Kharrig. Yet the pharaohs were not the first to exploit these mines. Their precursors date almost as far back as the Neolithic Age. Even today, Turquoise is occasionally found in the Sinai, but it is not much prized, as with time it can fade.

The regions west of the Tih Plateau on the Gulf of Suez are of special geological interest. This later extension of the Red Sea has its origin in the Carboniferous period, but it became only a relatively unimportant sidearm when the great African Rift Valley system developed. Especially interesting are geological processes that show that the development of the faults is not yet finished. The severe earthquake that shook Cairo in late 1992 arose from an obviously still young fault zone extending from the Gulf of Suez under Cairo to Alexandria. The warm springs at Uyun Musa ('Springs of Moses') and Hammam al-Fara'un ('Pharaoh's Bath') north of Abu Zenima, whose waters reach 70? centigrade, are evidence of deep earth movements. According to Bedouin legends, the pharaoh was killed here when he persecuted the Israelites during their Exodus from Egypt. Allegedly, his cursed soul lives on in the warm steam of a nearby cave. But this legend does not prevent old Bedouin from resting for hours in the cave after bathing in the hot sulfur springs by the shore to relieve their rheumatic pains. Just a few kilometers south of Hammam al-Fara'un, before the road near Abu Zenima leaves the mountains, there is another wonderful geological sight at the Tayiba Oasis. As the great African Rift Valley developed, hot magma came up and formed a black basalt band in the layers of white chalk. Due to the intense heat, the underlying layers were baked by the liquid rock and turned red. As a result, an unusually colored mountain face forms the backdrop for a green oasis today. A little farther back, strongly inclined strata are visible, indicating a main fault of the Gulf of Suez.
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