Dakhla Oasis : is located at 350 km from the Nile Valley and is also situated between the oases of Farafra and Kharga. It measures some 80 km from east to west and about 25 km from north to south.
Thanks to the discoveries of Ahmed Fakhry and today to the work of the D.O.P (Dakhleh Oasis Project), more is known about the history of that oasis.
Dakhla pertains to the Egyptian Wadi al-Jadid ("New Valley") governorate.
History
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 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.
