About Dakhla Oasis

The human history of this oasis started during the Pleistocene, when nomadic tribes settled sometimes there, in a time when the Sahara climate was wetter and where humans could have access to lakes and marshes. But about 60 000 years ago, the entire Sahara became drier, changing progressively into a hyper-arid desert (with less than 50 mm of rain per year). However, specialists think that nomadic hunter-gatherers began to settle almost permanently in the oasis of Dakhleh in the period of the Holocene (about 12 000 years ago), during new, but rare episodes of wetter times. In fact, the drier climate didn't mean that there was no more water in what is now known as the Western Desert. The south of the Libyan Desert has the most important supply of subterranean water in the world, and the first inhabitants of the Dakhla Oasis had access to surface water sources. The first European traveller to find the Dakhla Oasis was Sir Archibald Edmonstone, in the year 1819. He was succeeded by several other early travellers, but it was not until 1908 when the first egyptologist, Herbert Winlock, visited Dakhla oasis and noted its monuments in some systematic manner. In the 1950s, detailed studies began, first by Dr. Ahmed Fakhry, and in the late 1970s, an expedition of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale and the Dakhla Oasis Project each began detailed studies in the oasis