Through the Power Places of Fayum
At the very heart of the Fayum Oasis lies a place unknown to the pharaohs
Wadi Al-Hitan - the fossilized remains of creatures that once walked the earth…
Here, in the Valley of the Whales, one of the most important evolutionary processes on planet Earth took place - the transition of ancient whale ancestors from land-dwelling to marine mammals
You can picture the grand story of evolution 🙌🏻
Millions of years ago, in a prehistoric landscape covered with swamps and sea lagoons, an animal resembling a large otter or dog approaches the water
It learns to swim, to hunt in the water, to dive deeper
Generation after generation, its descendants return to land less and less often
Their bodies elongate, their legs become fins, their nostrils migrate up toward the top of the head
They become part of the water
They no longer belong to the land
I didn’t know about this process until I visited the valley a few years ago, and it reminded me of a Soviet cartoon called “When Whales Walked the Earth”
To this day I still can’t find that cartoon anywhere online 🤷♀️ - either it was taken down, or the title was changed…
The story of the valley’s discovery began at the start of the 20th century, when in 1902 the paleontologist Georg Schweinfurth first noticed the remains of unusual creatures among the sands
But it was only in the 1980s that scientists realized the true value of the finds
More than 400 skeletons of ancient whales, some as old as 40-50 million years, were found in the sandy deposits
40 MILLION!! It’s honestly hard for the brain to take in that number…
Today the Valley of the Whales is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there’s a museum on site where you can watch a short film about this vitally important process in our planet’s history
Private tour to the Fayum Oasis
