Updated: January 2007

The Map of the Gebel Uweinat (Egypt) by R.A. Bagnold (1931)

A piece of our Planet we love in a very special way is the Jebel Uweinat, an isolated massif crossed by the international boundaries of three nations: Libya, Egypt and Sudan. We have already visited Uweinat three times: the first time in November 2004, the second time in April 2005 and the last time in April 2006.
We have to built a very data-base with everything was published on the Uweinat region adding everything could be retrieved from the private archives of the Italian explorers that in the past contributed to the knowledge of this massif. Now we numbered in our master file many unedited documents about the early explorers.
According to the geo-morphologist, the Uweinat is more an island than a mountain, well deserving the scientific jargon name of inselberg.
Jebel Uweinat, Gebel Uweynat, Gebel Uweinat and Gebel Auenat are the different versions of the place name generated by the past inaccuracy related to the romanization of Arabic place names. Gebel Auenat is the name you found on old Italian atlas; it derives from the famous topographic expedition lead by Captain Oreste Marchesi in 1934 and when spelled in Italian it is a more accurate romanization the most widely accepted form, i.e. Jebel Uweinat. The Marchesi's expedition worked very hard on the field for eight months to compile an expedite map at the 1:100.000 scale. By courtesy of the Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM), the Terramata collection of historical maps of the massif is complete. It is a magnificent map but, of course, it can not be compared in quality to the Russian maps or to the most modern maps. Unfortunately the Sudanese side of the Gebel Uweinat is covered only by the Russian 1:500.000 scale map, a not enough detailed map to represent the complex topography of the many wadis hosting the prehistoric rock art that makes Uweinat a scientific and a first-class World-heritage sanctuary. In 2004, thanks to our friend Stefano Laberio Minozzi, who committed himself in obtaining the 30 meters resolution Aster DEM, Terramata was able to generate a first of a set of customized maps specially conceived for the hiker needs. Combining Landsat multispectral imagery, Terra-Aster , SRTM elevation data, old maps converted to vector maps, and also data collected on the field, we built a GIS project and we were able in 2005 to generate a new whole set vector maps to be used with the latest-generation GPS devices with cartographic capabilities.
A gigantic step forward was done in 2006 thanks to the Quickbird multi-spectral satellite images made available to the scientific team of the Emeri Project by Telespazio S.p.A. These image are featured by a spatial resolution equal to 60 centimeters (about two feet)! We were able to extract detailed topographic features by these raster data and vectorialized them in the format accepted by Garmin devices.
With an increasingly more sophisticated complex of electronic devices working on our backpacks we are now facing the problem of power consumption. We are now starting tests with advanced HT solar cells.
We are again ready to leave Italy for the fourth time, to walk again on the wonderful sun burnt rocks of Gebel Uweinat...