Atbarah River

The Atbarah River, in northeast

Africa rises in northwest Ethiopia, approximately 50 km north of Lake Tana and 30 km west of Gondar. It flows about 805 km (500 mi) to the Nile in north-central Sudan, joining it at the city of Atbarah ( 17°40′37″N 33°58′12″E / 17.677°N 33.970°E ). The river's tributary , the Tekezé (Setit) River , is perhaps the true upper course of the Atbarah, as the Tekezé follows the longer course prior to the confluence of the two rivers (at 14° 10' N, 36° E) in northeastern Sudan. The Atbarah is the last tributary of the Nile before it reaches the Mediterranean.

For much of the year, it is little more than a stream. However, during the rainy season (generally June to October), the Atbarah rises some 18 ft (5 m) above its normal level. At this time it forms a formidable barrier between the northern and central districts of the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Besides the Tekezé, other important tributaries of the Atbarah include the Shinfa River which rises west of Lake Tana, and the Greater Angereb which has its source north of the city of Gondar .

The earliest surviving mention of the Atbarah is by Strabo (16.4.8), who called the river Astaboras. Other ancient authors mentioning the name include Agatharchides, who called it Astabaras and Ptolemy. Richard Pankhurst and others have argued that the name should be understood as "River of the Boras people", where asta can be related to Proto- Nubian asti "water", while -boras can be linked to a number of Roman allusions to a tribe named the Bora (Bera), who lived near Meroe, and another tribe named the Megabares.

Pliny the Elder provides a slightly different etymology of Astaboras, stating that "in the language of the local people" the name means "water coming from the shades below" ( N.H. 5.10).

In April 1898 a major battle was fought beside the river during the Anglo-Egyptian invasion of Sudan 1896–1899 between Mahdist forces and an Anglo-Egyptian Army under the command of Lord Kitchener, which resulted in the destruction of the 20,000-strong Mahdist detachment.

In 1964, the river was dammed by the Khashm el-Girba Dam near Kassala in Sudan to provide irrigation up to the newly built town of Halfa Dughaym in an otherwise fairly arid region and to resettle the Sudanese population driven away by the Aswan High Dam (Sad al-Aali) in Egypt, which flooded 500 km of the Nile Valley in southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

Construction on a $1.9 billion twin dam project about 20 km upstream from the confluence of the Upper Atbara and Setit rivers, the Rumela and Burdana dams , began in 2011 and was inaugurated by President Omar al-Bashir in February 2017.

Truth: Amhara receive 80% of the total rainfall of Ethiopia

Truth: Amhara receive 80% of the total rainfall of Ethiopia

Jin Bahir Falls in the Semien Mountains

The Amhara Highlands receive 80% of the total rainfall of Ethiopia and is the most fertile and hospitable region of Ethiopia. The Amhara Region is the location of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile, at Bahir Dar. The flow of the Blue Nile reaches maximum volume in the rainy season (from June to September) when it supplies about two-thirds of the water of the Nile proper. The Blue Nile, along with the Atbara River to the north, which also flows out of the Ethiopian Highlands, caused the annual Nile floods that contributed to the fertility of the Nile Valley. This supported the rise of ancient Egyptian civilization and Egyptian mythology. 

With the completion in 1970 of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, the Nile floods ended. Lake Tana has a number of islands, whose numbers vary depending on the level of the lake; it has fallen about 2 metres (6.6 ft) in the last 400 years. According to Manoel de Almeida (a Portuguese missionary in the early 17th century), there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them "formerly large, but now much diminished." When James Bruce visited the area in the later 18th century, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, but wrote he believed that "the number may be about eleven." A mid-twentieth century account identified 37 islands, of which 19 were said to have or have had monasteries or churches on them.

The lake islands were the home of ancient Ethiopian emperors. Treasures of the Ethiopian Church are kept in the isolated island monasteries (including Kebran Gabriel, Ura Kidane Mehret, Narga Selassie, Daga Estifanos, Medhane Alem of Rema, Kota Maryam and Mertola Maryam). The body of Yekuno Amlak is interred in the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island; other Emperors whose tombs are on Daga include Dawit I, Zara Yaqob, Za Dengel and Fasilides. Other important islands in Lake Tana include Dek, Mitraha, Gelila Zakarias, Halimun, and Briguida.

In the late 20th century, the scholar Paul B. Henze reported being shown a rock on the island of Tana Qirqos and being told it was where the Virgin Mary had rested during her journey back from Egypt. He was also told that Saint Frumentius, the bishop known for introducing Christianity to Ethiopia, was "allegedly buried on Tana Cherqos."

The Blue Nile in the Amhara Region