Flora and fauna of Rub el Khali. Rub al-Khali desert: description, coordinates

The Rub al Khali desert can perhaps be considered one of the main attractions of the UAE, which occupies most of the country in area.

Translated from Arabic, Rub al Khali means “empty place” or “empty valley”. In 15th-century manuscripts, part of this vast desert was called Fedj el-Khali, which exactly corresponds to the name “empty valley”.

But later this name began to refer to the entire desert, and the Arabic word fedj (valley) was replaced by the more general rub ("land, territory").

But since in Arabic the words slave and rub do not differ in writing, and rub (quarter) is spoken much more often than slave (land), the first part of the name began to be read as rub.

Therefore, instead of “empty land” (desert), the not very clear name “empty (desert) quarter” appeared. Or there is also the name “empty quarter”.

This is the translation of the name of the desert that can be found in many guidebooks.

The Rub al-Khali desert is one of the largest deserts in the world, located on the Arabian Peninsula in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and the UAE.

This is not only one of the largest, but also one of the hottest flat deserts in the world, where during the day the fiery red sand manages to heat up to seventy degrees.

The Rub al-Khali desert extends approximately 1,000 kilometers in length and 500 kilometers in width, rising 800 meters in the southwest and approximately equal to sea level in the northeast.

For a long time, the desert was considered the most impassable, difficult and even life-threatening terrain. For many centuries, caravans carrying precious incense, seasonings and fabrics from South Asia passed through it.

From above, the desert appears relatively flat with small hills, although you can also find dunes 200 and even 300 meters high.

An amazing feature of the local landscapes is the alternation of sand dunes with gypsum plains and gravel. The sand has a characteristic reddish-orange color due to its feldspar content.

The Rub al-Khali desert, which at first glance looks lifeless, was in fact once inhabited, for example, scientists confirmed the existing hypothesis that several cities flourished on the site of the desert approximately five thousand years ago, including Ubar, which is still called the City of a Thousand Pillars.

Once upon a time there were green meadows, glistening lakes, tall trees, birds flying, although now, looking at the endless sea of ​​sand, it’s hard to believe.

Although even now the desert lives its own life, perhaps unnoticed at first glance.

Despite the tropical hot climate with little rainfall (about 55 mm falls per year), water can be found at approximately ten meters depth.

There is an opinion that a whole network of rivers is hidden under the sands. Once upon a time, these territories were the bottom of a small network of lakes that disappeared decades ago.

These lakes were formed due to very heavy rainfall, similar to the current monsoons, and lasted from several tens to hundreds of years.

There is ample evidence that these lakes were home to various species of flora and fauna, including hippopotamuses, water buffalo and other cattle.

Traces of human activity were also found dating from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago - various tools and so on, but no human remains were found.

There are oases in the Rub al-Khali desert.

The largest of them are Al Ain. But the most picturesque is still considered El Jiva, located in the center of the desert, which stretches for 50 km.

Vegetation in the desert is very sparse. Mainly camel thorns and solyanka. And the animal world is not so replete with diversity.

It seems that there is no one in the desert except camels, jerboas, snakes and scorpions. But that's not true. If you collect representatives of the entire animal world inhabiting Rub al-Khali, you can count more than a hundred of its species, among which you can even find the beisa antelope (lat. Oryx beisa).

It has straight cone-shaped horns. The weight of such an antelope reaches 100 kilograms.

There are also salt marshes in some parts of the desert, such as Umm al-Samim in the eastern part of the desert.

This area is the driest, with minimal rainfall. The fauna and flora here are also quite scarce.

The population in the desert is nomadic, mainly Bedouins who breed camels.

The main wealth of the eastern part of the Rub al-Khali desert is, of course, oil and gas fields. Geologically, the Rub al-Khali is the richest oil place on the planet.

The largest oil fields in the world are located here, and the oil lies at a very low depth, thereby ensuring the low cost of its extraction.

One of the first Europeans to penetrate into the depths of the Rub al-Khali and map it was the British subject Wilfrid Thesiger in 1946-1950.

He was able to appreciate this beauty:

In this cruel land you can see such wonderful pictures that there is no equal to them in our climate.

The discovery of rich oil and gas deposits under the sands in the east of Rub al-Khali caused in the second half of the 20th century. rapid and dramatic changes in the lives of former nomads.

Fabulous profits from the sale of hydrocarbons suddenly turned the wild desert into a more than civilized one.

Thus, in the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, caravan trails were replaced by eight-lane highways, like mirages in the desert, skyscrapers, hotels and business centers sprang up.

In just one generation, some Arabs changed their way of life, turning from camel drivers into large entrepreneurs and engineers, replacing camels with expensive cars...

Entertainment for tourists includes off-road driving along the high dunes, racing on ATVs and bokarts, riding special skis and boards from sandy hills, and visiting a stylized traditional Bedouin camp.

Rub al Khali Desert - in Arabic, the deserted quarter of the world. This is the name of the largest sandy desert in the Arabian Peninsula, which extends across Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Its area is 650 thousand square kilometers. From time immemorial, the sea of ​​sand stretching to the very horizon has been a test for all living things. A test that gives either life or death. Almost the entire territory of the United Arab Emirates is covered by desert. In Arabic, the word desert is translated as “sea without water.” The Bedouins have learned to live in this unfriendly land; for all other people this place is a living hell. Grain of sand, the wind tirelessly pours dune after dune, the height of which can reach 300 meters. Despite extremely unfavorable conditions, the Arabian Peninsula has been crossed by trade routes since time immemorial. Moving along the legendary road of myrrh and frankincense, which connected the Mediterranean with Asia, caravans brought precious incense and seasonings from the East. The journey from one seashore to another lasted long days. Caravans could count on lodging and meals in the villages of nomads. The immutable rules of life in the desert became a code of honor for these people: a traveler must not be denied lodging or food. But, on the other hand, any offense is avenged here according to the law “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

In the second half of the 20th century, civilization reached the Emirates with lightning speed. Where until recently there was nothing but sand, mighty skyscrapers have risen. The camel trails have become eight-lane highways, but the Dubai River, which crosses the city of the same name, is still plied with sailing wooden dhows carrying goods from local traders. There are dozens of shops and shopping centers in the metropolis, but the atmosphere of ancient times is still alive. Modernity has changed the people of the Emirates. Pearl divers and camel drivers became serious entrepreneurs and engineers in a short period of one generation. The Islam they profess did not hinder this metamorphosis in any way. After all, the prophet Mohammed himself took part in merchant travels. Hidden beneath the desert sand, oil has made some people millionaires. The sheikhs invest their funds prudently, taking into account the forecast that oil reserves will be depleted in a few decades. And it seems that not a single sheikh knows how to deny himself anything. Like the caliphs of old, oil magnates now live in luxurious palaces drowning in gold. Some of them slept in Bedouin tents 30 years ago. Now their residences resemble palaces from the tales of the Thousand and One Nights.

Since ancient times, traditions of hospitality and sincere faith have been honored here. The norms of relations with neighbors are still determined by the words of the Prophet Mohammed: “A Muslim is a brother to a Muslim and he should neither oppress him nor leave him without help. Whoever helps his brother in his need, Allah will help him in his own need. Whoever relieves a Muslim from any of his sorrows, Allah will relieve him from one of the sorrows of the Day of Resurrection. And whoever covers a Muslim on the Day of Resurrection, Allah will cover him.”

Rub al Khali desert. The route leads from Abu Dhabi to the Liwa Oasis. . At noon, the rusty-red sand heats up to 70°. Only camels can withstand such heat. During the day, their owners leave them to their own devices. Camels look for food and return to their owners in the evening. But tourists, unlike camels, can stand in the open sun for a maximum of 2 minutes. About enough time to take a photo of yourself against the backdrop of the endless Rub al Khali desert. Until recently, the inhospitable Rub al Khali desert deserved the name terra incognita - unknown land. Neither the power of the sultans nor the power of the colonialists extended here. The science of survival in the desert sands has been mastered only by a handful of Bedouins. One of the first Europeans to penetrate the Rub al Khali was a British subject, Wilfrid Thesiger. In his diary, he wrote the following: “In this cruel land you can see such wonderful pictures that there is no equal to them in our climate.” Since engineers came up with all-wheel drive and air conditioning, the desert doesn't seem so scary anymore. But even today it should be treated with respect. Anyone who underestimates the desert is severely punished for it. A dune decorated with desert roses. These unusual shapes made of gypsum and sand, resembling flowers in appearance, appeared due to the strong evaporation of groundwater. These holes were caused by moisture. The darker sand is overgrown with gypsum crystals. Desert roses are created underground. Over time, the wind opens them. This specimen is over a thousand years old. A desert rose of this size costs several thousand euros. These stone flowers are considered a valuable trophy. They are hunted by fossil collectors. Our guide hides the valuable specimen behind a tuft of grass so that he has something to show other tourists.

Rub al Khali is a huge desert, which the Arabs call the “desert quarter of the world.” Even in such an inhospitable place, traces of life can be found. Quite stunted, but still. Individual stems desperately fight for life in a sea of ​​hot sand. But one of the winners is an inconspicuous blade of creeping Tribulus grass. This is life. It seems that the heat does not bother the dromedaries at all. Meeting another living creature in the desert does not happen often. Some of the animals show curiosity, others do not waste time on identification and move away to a safe distance. One of the Arabian tales tells of a magical place somewhere among the moving dunes, in which trees should grow, providing shelter for hundreds of birds and animals. There must also be a rock from which water gushes out and then collects in an underground lake. In Arabic, this place is called Al Maha, just like the white Arabian orex antelope, which has almost disappeared these days.

A significant part of the Arabian Peninsula is occupied by probably the driest desert in the world. It was called Rub al-Khali. In Arabic, the name desert means “empty place.” If you look at it through an airplane window, it might seem that someone covered a huge area with sand and leveled everything. This is truly a flat desert. Although there are also some hills 200-300m high in the form of dunes and sand hills. It occupies the southeastern territory of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of ​​600 thousand km2. The Rub al-Khali desert is divided between four Arab states: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen.

But was the now deserted place on the Arabian Peninsula always lifeless? Not at all. Studying this territory from satellites, American scientists confirmed the existing hypothesis that several cities flourished on the site of the desert approximately five thousand years ago, including Ubar, which is also called the City of a Thousand Pillars. The Rub al-Khali desert is not completely lifeless even now. Despite the fact that the climate here is tropical with little rainfall (about 55 mm falls per year), water can sometimes be found at a depth of 10 meters. It is assumed that a whole network of rivers is buried under the sands.

There are oases in the desert. The largest are Liwa and Al Ain. But the most picturesque, perhaps, is El Jiva, which stretches for 50 km.

The vegetation in these areas is poor. Mainly camel thorns and solyanka. And the animal world is not so replete with diversity. It seems that besides camels, jerboas, snakes and scorpions, there is no one to meet. But that's not true. In the Desert Park created in the emirate of Sharjah, they decided to gather representatives of the entire animal world inhabiting the Rub al-Khali, and counted more than a hundred of its species, among which you can even find the beiza antelope. It has straight cone-shaped horns. The weight of such an antelope reaches 100 kilograms.

The population in the desert is nomadic and breeds camels. The main wealth of the eastern part of the Rub al-Khali desert is, of course, oil and gas fields.

Ahead, to the right, to the left is an endless light yellow plain with mountains equally darkening in the distance. Rub al-Khali (“Empty Quarter”) is what the ancient Arabs called this vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula.

Behind, on a gentle hill, there is a pile of gray buildings stretching upward. Marib. Only 800 people live in this Yemeni city. They lead camel caravans and grow millet-durru and corn on irrigated lands. A bright green spot stands out against a monotonously gray background: two palm trees and several banana trees grow in the courtyard of the local governor’s house. At the foot of the hill is a military fortress.

We are going to the Marib Dam - one of the most remarkable structures of antiquity.

Looking at this boundless sea of ​​sand and stone, dotted here and there with fragments of slabs and capitals of broken columns, it is very difficult to imagine that this region was once a blooming garden.

In ancient times, states arose, developed and died in the south of the Arabian Peninsula: the Minaan and Sabaean kingdoms, Qataban and Himyarite. Caravan routes passed here, along which myrrh, incense and other incense were brought to Palestine, Egypt, Babylonia and Persia. Only here, in Southern Arabia, on a narrow strip from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, did trees grow, from the hardened resin of which these incense was prepared. Many religious ceremonies could not do without them; among ancient peoples they were considered a gift from the gods. That is why the places from which they were brought were considered sacred.

Our truck, raising a tail of whitish dust behind it, slowly moves along the dry bed of the small river Wadi Dana.

“The dam is there, behind this mountain,” says one of our companions, a young Bedouin from the El-Abid tribe living in the vicinity of Marib, pointing to the hill visible ahead.

He stands on the step of the car, holding onto the side of the body with one hand. The Bedouin's long hair, beard and eyebrows are covered with a fine white dust. He looks like Santa Claus, only instead of a traditional bag with gifts, he has an old Belgian rifle hanging on his shoulder - the barrel is plugged with a wooden stopper, the bolt and magazine are carefully wrapped in a gray cloth.

I have heard and read more than once about the Marib Dam, built 2,700 years ago. It was a very large hydraulic structure for that time. A high kilometer-long dam blocked the Wadi Dana River. Its waters irrigated orchards and fields stretching for several kilometers around the city. At the beginning of our era, the dam collapsed, the water left, and life left along with the water.

We are standing on the slope of Mount Balak el-Qibli. In front of us is a small dam, made of narrow basalt slabs, and a low structure for draining water from the reservoir into an irrigation diversion canal. On the opposite bank you can discern the outline of a tower of another canal. This is all that remains of an ancient irrigation device. The air rings with the chirping of cicadas, large blue lizards run from stone to stone, landing funny on their front legs. There's not a soul here except us.

A few more kilometers through the desert, and we approach the temple of Avvam, which was also the same age as ancient Marib, one of the capitals of the Sabaean kingdom.

Some of the sculptures and bas-reliefs that decorated the temple are now kept in a small dark room in the Marib fortress. They are made with great skill. Among them is an image of a bull's head, which symbolized Illumkuh, the goddess of the Moon - in her honor the Avvam temple was built. The head of a bull adorned the altars on which incense was burned and animals were sacrificed.

In the same room, lime slabs were stacked, on which ancient sculptors carved ears of barley and figurines of rams. A beautiful alabaster bas-relief depicting the goddess of fertility - a woman sitting in front of heavy bunches of grapes.

However, the fortress contains only a small part of what was found in the ruins of ancient Marib. Magnificent collections of cultural objects from ancient Arabia are kept in Parisian museums. Western travelers who had been able to visit Marib in the past bought these finds for next to nothing from the Bedouins, who looked for them in the ruins of the Minaean and Sabaean cities in the Rub al-Khali. The reactionary imams who ruled Yemen until September 1962 instilled in the people the idea that only with the adoption of Islam did they gain “real culture,” and barbarously plundered and destroyed ancient monuments. So, for example, we saw in the wall of the fortress well, in the walls and floor of the Marib hotel... unique stones with Sabaean inscriptions.

The Republican government took under protection all ancient monuments. Valuable handwritten books discovered in the palaces of the deposed imam and his accomplices were transferred to the newly created national library.

Rub al-Khali still holds many secrets. To the southeast of Marib lie the ruins of the Maribam Temple, built about 2,700 years ago. In the northeastern regions of Rub al-Khali, the ruins of Minaan and Sabaean cities have been preserved - reports of them are sometimes brought by Bedouins who accidentally wandered there. Who knows, perhaps important archaeological discoveries will be made here soon.

O. Gerasimov

Rub al-Khali is a large desert on the Arabian Peninsula. It is one of the five largest deserts in the world, covering an area of ​​650 thousand square meters. km. The Rub al-Khali desert is easy to find on the map - it is located on the territory of 4 countries: Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but is rightfully considered a landmark of the UAE, since it occupies most of this state.

General information

Rub al-Khali is not only one of the largest on the planet, it also:

• the largest of the sandy deserts;
• one of the hottest; in July-August the air temperature here often exceeds +50°C, the average maximum in these months is +47°C, and the sand on hot days heats up to +70°C;
• one of the driest - the annual precipitation rate barely reaches 35 mm, while evaporation exceeds 2000 mm;
• according to LifeGlobe, Rub al-Khali is the most beautiful desert in the world.

Previously, the desert was called Fej el-Hadli, which translates as “empty valley.” It is under this name that she is mentioned in manuscripts of the 15th century. Later it began to be called Rab-el-Khali - “empty territory”, “empty land”, even later “rab” was transformed into “rub”; the modern name can be translated as “empty quarter.” By the way, in English Rub al-Khali is called Empty quarter. However, in reality, the desert occupies much more than 1/4 of the Arabian Peninsula - almost a third.

From a height, the desert seems almost flat, but the height of its dunes reaches 300 m in some places. Moreover, thanks to the monsoon southwest winds (they are called “kharif” here), crescent-shaped dunes are formed on the tops of the dunes.

The sand here is mainly silicate, in which about 90% is quartz and 10% is feldspar. It is orange-red in color due to the iron oxide coating the feldspar grains.

Desert inhabitants

Despite climatic conditions in which it would seem simply impossible to survive, the desert is inhabited. Here you can find not only scorpions, snakes and lizards, as one might assume, but also rodents and even larger animals, in particular the bayza antelope, whose weight can reach hundreds of kilograms.

Population

Rub al-Khali was once inhabited: scientists believe that about 5 thousand years ago there were several large cities on its territory, including Ubar, which Herodotus and Ptolemy wrote about and which is called the “City of a Thousand Pillars” and “ Atlantis of the Sands."

People still live in the desert: on its territory there are several oases, the most famous of which are, and El-Jiva. The population of the oases is engaged in agriculture and traditional crafts, as well as nomadic cattle breeding - not only camels, but also sheep are bred here.

In the east of Rub al-Khali, large oil and gas deposits were discovered in the second half of the 20th century; the extraction of these minerals is carried out here and now.

Entertainment

Tourists love to ride along the dunes in off-road vehicles - this kind of entertainment is called here. If you stay in one of the oases, you can find other entertainment. For example, ride along the dunes on special boards that resemble surfboards or on skis. ATV racing is also offered. You can visit a stylized Bedouin camp.

By the way, during such walks you can come across many abandoned cars, including SUVs and water carrier trucks, which in the Rub al-Khali desert deliver water to where it is needed. Such landscapes are reminiscent of the scenery for cyberpunk films.

How to visit the desert?

There are many ways to see the desert - both quite “civilized” and even comfortable, and those that not every extreme sports enthusiast will dare to take. For example, an excellent six-lane highway leads from the Liwa oasis.

You can go from Abu Dhabi to Liwa and through Hamim - there is a two-lane road leading there, which is also of very high quality. You can see the desert by driving along the border with Oman and Saudi Arabia. And the bravest ones can book a safari in Rub al-Khali. It is better to visit the desert in winter – at this time the temperature here is quite comfortable (about +35°C).