Gilf Kebir () (var. Gilf al-Kebir, Jilf al Kabir, Gilf Kebir Plateau) is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier". This sandstone plateau, roughly the size of Puerto Rico, rises from the Libyan Desert floor. It is the true heart of the Gilf Kebir National Park. The name Gilf Kebir was given to the plateau by Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein in 1925, as it had no local name. It is known for its rugged beauty, remoteness, geological interest, and the dramatic cliff paintings-pictographs and rock carvings-petroglyphs which depict an earlier era of abundant animal life and human habitation. Geography and climate The Uweinat mountain range at the very south of the plateau extends from Egypt into Libya and Sudan. Wadis The plateau is crisscrossed by Wadis (dry, seasonal riverbeds). These include: Wadi Hamra Wadi Akhdar Wadi Bakht Wadi Dayiq Wadi Firaq Wadi Gazayir Wadi Maftuh Wadi Mashi Wadi Sura Wadi Wassa Wadi Abd el-Malik Climate Gilf Kebir Plateau lies in the heart of the eastern part of the vast Sahara Desert, and, thus, gets some of the most extreme climates on Earth. This is the driest place on the planet, not only because the area is totally rainless (the annual average rainfall amount hardly reaches 0.1 mm) but also because the geological aridity index/dryness ratio is over 200, which means that the solar energy received at the ground evaporates 200 times the amount of precipitation received. Rainfall may fall every twenty years in Gilf Kebir. History Petroglyphs The Gilf Kebir is known for its prehistoric Neolithic petroglyphs Rock engravings in the upper part of wadi Hamra. Magharet el Kantara in the southern Gilf Kebir contains only one known rock art site, a cave discovered by Shaw & party in 1936. Wadi Sura in the southwestern Gilf Kebir: the "Cave of Swimmers", discovered by the Hungarian Count László Almásy (The English Patient), plus many other paintings nearby. In January 2003, Zerzura Expeditions and Jacopo Foggini independently discovered a major new rock art site in the Western Gilf Kebir (Foggini-Mestekawi Cave). The North-western half of the Gilf Kebir aside from Wadi Sura has only a few scattered engravings, of an apparently very ancient age. Karkur Talh and Karkur Murr: major eastern valleys of the Uweinat contain one of the richest concentrations of rock art