This drawing displays Ichthyophagi fishermen, who lived along wadis, small water streams, and uninhabited areas along the Nile valley (such as Batn Al Hajar), where fishing can be found.

Ichthyophagi are ancient tribes mentioned in classical writings as inhabiting the area expanding from the Red Sea coast to the Nubian Desert; the Geographer Strabo stated:

"The part of the Arabian Gulf along the side of Arabia, beginning at the Aelanites recess, is, as recorded by Alexander's associates and by Anaxicrates, fourteen thousand stadia, though this figure is excessive; and the part opposite the Troglodytic country (which is on the right side as one sails from the City of Heroes), as far as Ptolemaïs and the country where elephants are captured, extends nine thousand stadia towards the south and slightly in the direction of the east; and thence, as far as the straits, four thousand five hundred stadia, in a direction more towards the east. The straits are formed towards Aethiopia by a promontory called Deirê, and by a town bearing the same name, which is inhabited by the Ichthyophagi." (Book xvi Ch 4: 4)¹

A common costume wore by the inhabitants of the Ichthyophagi is a headdress made of ostrich feathers, where ostriches were abundantly found in the fertile lands of Eastern Sudan.

• ^{1 Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, trans. H. L. Jones. Loeb Classical Library edition, 1917, Bill Thayer's Web Site. Mar. 2010 <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/home.html>.}