Arabah

The Arava (Hebrew הערבה; Arab وادي عربة, DMG Wādī ʿ Arabah; Aravasenke also, occasionally Araba (h) or Arava Valley ) is the valley of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba in the runs the border between Israel and Jordan.

Geographical information

The Aravasenke is a part of the Great African grave breach. It extends from the Dead Sea are 165 km to Eilat and Aqaba on the Red Sea and thus represents the continuation of the Jordan Valley to the south represents the sink reaches a width of 10 to 25 km away. On the eastern edge of the Jordanian mountains rise to a height of over 1700 m in the vicinity of Petra, while the Negev is only about 600 m to the west. The Aravasenke achieved even at its highest point, which is located about 75 km north of the Red Sea, a height of 230 m. At the Dead Sea the terrain drops to 417 m below sea level.

The Arava is a stone desert with little vegetation of perennial shrubs and trees such as sagebrush, camel thorn acacia and others. Like all deserts but it is not inanimate. So there is even an endemic spider species, which is named after the Arava Cerbalus aravaensis.

Infrastructure

The Arava is a very sparsely populated area ever since. For transport, the valley offers good conditions. In ancient times it was also used in East-West direction. Thus, the incense road from Petra went to Gaza on the Mediterranean through the Arava. Today, the traffic through the border on North-South connections is limited.

On the Israeli side of the valley, a major north - south road connection runs since 1966 (now Highway 90). This road is the first, which runs through the valley along the whole length. The continuation along the Dead Sea was only in 1970 that completed with great effort.

Also runs on the Jordanian side the highway R65 (Jordan) by the Arava, in the north continues on the east side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley to the border in Yarmuktal.

In the valley there are no large towns, there are only some minor, mostly agriculturally oriented settlements in places where water is available. On the Israeli side, some places are close to the transition between the mountains of the Negev and the Arava, such as the kibbutz Jotwata.

Importance

Of economic importance in the Arava long time was the copper mining: in the southwest on the African plate at Timna (Israel). The mines existed in ancient times, since the reduction is set, however. On the Arabian plate, the copper deposits are located 107 km further north in Feinan. These have also been exploited in the Chalcolithic period and until the 13th century. The extent of displacement of the two continental plates can be observed since the breakup of the African grave breach, as the copper ore once formed a unit on the distance between the two deposits.

In 1994, the Aravasenke was the venue of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.

Research

On old maps until the 18th century, the Arava is not known. The Tabula Peutingeriana shows a road from Jerusalem by the edge of the Negev to the Red Sea and in the east the royal road over Petra and Shobeck to Philadelphia ( Amman), intervening only a crossing south of the Dead Sea. It was not until Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1822 published a map that is entered on the " El- Araba ".

Scientists from several countries and various disciplines are now involved in " Wadi Arabah Project" in exploring the region. They examine the Arava as a dynamic, historical area, which connects southern Jordan with the Negev. These include geological formation, flora and fauna, raw materials and water resources as well as settlement structures of the Copper Age to the Ottoman Empire.

Surveys and excavations confirmed by numerous settlements in all eras. Especially many were detected for the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Climate variability have repeatedly impact on the population.