The Ababda (or Ababde) (the Gebadei of Pliny, and possibly the Troglodytes of other classical writers), are nomads living in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, in the vicinity of Aswan in Egypt. They are a subgroup of the Beja people who are bilingual in Beja and Egyptian Arabic.

They extend from the Nile at Aswan to the Red Sea, and reach northward to the Qena-Quseir road, thus occupying the southern border of Egypt east of the Nile. They call themselves "sons of the Jinns." With some of the clans of the Bisharin and possibly the Hadendoa, they represent the Blemmyes of classic geographers, and their location today is almost identical with that assigned them in Roman times.

They were constantly at war with the Romans, who eventually conquered them. In the Middle Ages, they were known as Beja, and convoyed pilgrims from the Nile valley to Aidhab, the port of embarkation for Jedda. From time immemorial, they have acted as guides to caravans through the Nubian desert and up the Nile valley as far as Sennar.

They intermarried with the Nubians, and settled in small colonies at Shendi and elsewhere up to Muhammad Ali's conquest of the region in the early 19th century. They are still great trade carriers, and visit very distant districts.

[edit] References

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Ababda.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

[edit] External links

• Zbigniew Kosc: Ababda Bedouins of the Eastern Desert

[edit] See also

• Beja people

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