Zerzura

[kitab_geeks]

Thread for discussing the lost Oasis of Zerzura (the oasis of the Little Birds).

Discussion welcome! I will post on this thread from time to time.

Introduction:
Zerzura is supposed to be a lost city in an oasis of the same name, in the Western Desert of Egypt or Libya. It is supposed to have a gate with a carved bird that holds the key to the gate in its beak (why have a lock if you are going to put the key in such an obvious place? But then I guess lots of people keep the key under the doormat or nearby plant pot...)
If you follow just what is in Wikipedia, it is supposed to be either quite a bit to the west of the Farafra-Baharya road, or else on the road from the Nile to Kharga and Dakhla. These can obviously not both be true...
The Zerzura Club, a group of explorers from between the World Wars on whom the book and movie The English Patient were loosely based, thought it was southwest of Dakhla, and eventually declared it to be in Wadi Sura, on the southern edge of the Gilf Kibir - even though the site in no way fits the description.
There are various legends that refer to Zerzura, but the most reliable source is considered to be the Kitab al-Kanuz: the Book of Hidden Pearls. This was a medieval Egyptian treasure hunting manual compiled in the 1400s from various documents that appear to date back to the 900s AD.
In entry 369, it places the starting point for the trail to Zerzura in the Dakhla Oasis:
"In the city of Warde [Rose], located behind El-qala at Essoury [The Fortress at Essoury], you will see palm trees, vines, and springs. Enter the wadi and walk upstream; you will find another wadi extending westward between two mountains. From this wadi, a path will lead you to the city of Farzourah [Zerzura], of which you will find the gate closed; it is a city white as a pigeon, and on the door of which a bird is carved. Take the key from the bird’s beak with your hand, and open the gate to the city. Enter, you will find many treasures, along with the king and queen lying in the castle. Do not approach them, but take the treasures. The End" - from the English edition of the Kitab al-Kanuz: the Book of Hidden Pearls.

Walking "upstream" most likely means walking north, not south - towards the Libyan Plateau (north of Dakhla and Kharga), not the Gilf Kibir...

Next time I will post a translation of the same section from the Arabic edition, which is surprisingly different from the English edition...

 

[Crow]

Here is video clip. That tells the history of search for the lost story.

Zerzura

 

[kitab_geeks]

Here is video clip. That tells the history of search for the lost story.

Zerzura

Thanks for posting the link - it is a fun video (though a bit long), with lots of good historical reference. However it does not seem like the author has seen the actual Kitab al-Kanuz. He notes it is available on the web in Arabic - and it is. He does not note it is also available in French. However, the French version on the web is posted from very poor quality optical scans made in 1987 from the 1907 edition published in Cairo by the Imprimerie de l'Institut francais d'archaeologie orientale, and are nearly unreadably poor quality - this also goes for every copy of the French I have seen on Amazon. The scan of the French was done by the University of Ottawa using a copy of the 1907 edition that is in the University of Toronto library.
There is now an English version available, clean and easy to read, and it includes GPS coordinates for most of the sites named in the Kitab, as well as loads of useful annotations like a Glossary of some of the medieval Arabic terms used in giving instructions for finding the treasures.