Qualla: Selima Oasis

Selima Oasis: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison, Public domain. Around 8300 BCE, a freshwater lake sat where Selima Oasis now lies. The surrounding vegetation was savannah. Palaeolithic hunters left their stone tools by the water's edge, and lacustrine animals - fish, waterbirds, crocodiles - lived the short lives they would leave as fossils. Then, slowly, the climate changed. Around 4300 BCE the freshwater turned brackish, a saltwater sabkha. By 2700 BCE the water was gone. What remained was a patch of palm trees in a sea of sand, and a reason to stop walking. For the next five thousand years, people kept walking here.

Read more: Selima Oasis on Qualla

Image: T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison | Public domain

Selima Oasis: The Forty Days' Road

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Selima sits about 90 kilometers west of the Third Cataract of the Nile, in Sudan's Nubian Desert. It lies on the Darb al-Arbain - the Forty Days' Road - a desert track that linked Kordofan, south of the Sahara, with the Nile valley and ultimately Egypt. Just north of Selima the t...

Read more: Selima Oasis on Qualla

Image: Public domain

Selima Oasis: Palms in the Wind

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison, Public domain. The flora at Selima is not varied but it is stubborn. Date palms, dom palms, tamarisk, camelthorn, a few reeds and grasses that somehow find enough moisture to keep leaves open. In 1902, observers counted upwards of 2,500 date palms at the oasis. By 2011, just over 1,000 remained...

Read more: Selima Oasis on Qualla

Image: T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison | Public domain

Selima Oasis: Salt and Memory

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison, Public domain. In 1928 the archaeologist Thomas Leach reported that salt was still being mined at Selima by groups arriving on donkey and camel from Sukkot, Argo Island, and the Mahas. The salt caravans followed a track from Sagiat el-Abd in the Nile valley - a hard desert crossing in exchange ...

Read more: Selima Oasis on Qualla

Image: T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison | Public domain

Selima Oasis: A Border Post in the Sand

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison, Public domain. Today Selima has a military post, a police office, and a customs station. The caravan trade is gone. What traffic does pass through is mostly contraband and people moving north toward Libya - refugees, migrants, sometimes smugglers. The oasis that once watered pilgrimage caravans...

Read more: Selima Oasis on Qualla

Image: T. A. Leach, G. W. Grabham, F. Addison | Public domain