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Original printed wraps 15x21cm. 158pp Arabic text including numerous b/w maps and drawings, and 24 full-page colour photographic plates. Covers and interiors very good with some marks, and presentation ink stamp to the title page and final leaf. This appears to be rare with 3 locations found on Worldcat and Jisc(OCLC 977714678: Oxford University, Exeter University, Toronto University). The author was Head of Kuwait University's Geography Department, and sat on the Editorial Board of its bulletin. In 2016 he received the Kuwaiti State Award for the Arts, the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, and the GCC Excellence Award. Directed at geographers and those with an interest in ancient Arabic poetry and literature, the author explains the effect of sand on the Arabian Peninsula in terms of three processes, sweeping ("Al Dhuru"), sculpture, and sedimentation. In doing so, he seeks to clarify terms used by Arab writers to describe these, as they had not hitherto been studied in detail. He considers this to be a necessary preliminary to more detailed geographical work on the subject, and encourages Arab universities to take up the challenge. His fieldwork was done in Saudi Arabia, facilitated by the University of Riyadh. On the wide range of depressions formed by sweeping, Al-Ghunaim finds that foreign terminology pales in comparison to the abundance of expressions in Arabic sources, and limits his discussion to just four, which the Spanish group together as "playa", which he breaks down into further categories (sabhka, sikha, rawdah etc). Sculpted landforms were the most important things that caught the eye of the ancients, with different terms for their shape, colour and location. He identifies 6 forms for sedimentation and backfilling (including crescent dunes and abraq), with various types for each. The photos illustrate these features in Qassim, Qatif, Jubail, Khaybar, Al Ula, Hail, Gebel Yatib (including the rock carvings), Madain Saleh, Rub al Khali and elsewhere. Seller Inventory # 4666
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