The mythical city or oasis of Zerzura was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River, in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, authors spoke of a city which was “white as a dove” and called it “The Oasis of Little Birds”. More recently, European explorers made forays into the desert in search of Zerzura but never succeeded in finding it. Notable twentieth-century explorers Ralph Bagnold of Great Britain and the Hungarian László (Ladislaus) Almásy led an expedition to search for Zerzura from 1929-1930 using Ford Model-T trucks. In 1932 together with Patrick Clayton the Almásy-Clayton expedition found two valleys in the Gilf Kebir that suggested themselves as Zerzura. In the following year Almásy found the third of the so-called “Zerzura wadis”, actually rain oases in the remote desert. On the other hand, Bagnold considered Zerzura as a legend that could never be solved by discovery. The participants of the Zerzura hunt created the ‘Club Zerzura’ in a bar in Wadi Halfa upon their return in 1930. Many of the club’s members remained friends and several went on to serve as officers in the British Army in World War II in Africa. Almásy, however, served in the German Afrika Korps and found posthumous fame in the film The English Patient, based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje.
Monday, 19 February 2007
The English Patient
An interesting story I was discussing with my Dad on the telephone yesterday:
The mythical city or oasis of Zerzura was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River, in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, authors spoke of a city which was “white as a dove” and called it “The Oasis of Little Birds”. More recently, European explorers made forays into the desert in search of Zerzura but never succeeded in finding it. Notable twentieth-century explorers Ralph Bagnold of Great Britain and the Hungarian László (Ladislaus) Almásy led an expedition to search for Zerzura from 1929-1930 using Ford Model-T trucks. In 1932 together with Patrick Clayton the Almásy-Clayton expedition found two valleys in the Gilf Kebir that suggested themselves as Zerzura. In the following year Almásy found the third of the so-called “Zerzura wadis”, actually rain oases in the remote desert. On the other hand, Bagnold considered Zerzura as a legend that could never be solved by discovery. The participants of the Zerzura hunt created the ‘Club Zerzura’ in a bar in Wadi Halfa upon their return in 1930. Many of the club’s members remained friends and several went on to serve as officers in the British Army in World War II in Africa. Almásy, however, served in the German Afrika Korps and found posthumous fame in the film The English Patient, based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje.
The mythical city or oasis of Zerzura was long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River, in Egypt or Libya. In writings dating back to the 13th century, authors spoke of a city which was “white as a dove” and called it “The Oasis of Little Birds”. More recently, European explorers made forays into the desert in search of Zerzura but never succeeded in finding it. Notable twentieth-century explorers Ralph Bagnold of Great Britain and the Hungarian László (Ladislaus) Almásy led an expedition to search for Zerzura from 1929-1930 using Ford Model-T trucks. In 1932 together with Patrick Clayton the Almásy-Clayton expedition found two valleys in the Gilf Kebir that suggested themselves as Zerzura. In the following year Almásy found the third of the so-called “Zerzura wadis”, actually rain oases in the remote desert. On the other hand, Bagnold considered Zerzura as a legend that could never be solved by discovery. The participants of the Zerzura hunt created the ‘Club Zerzura’ in a bar in Wadi Halfa upon their return in 1930. Many of the club’s members remained friends and several went on to serve as officers in the British Army in World War II in Africa. Almásy, however, served in the German Afrika Korps and found posthumous fame in the film The English Patient, based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment