Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Gold mining
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===== Ancient Egypt ===== Evidence suggests that [[Nubia]] had sporadic access to gold nuggets during the [[Neolithic]] and [[Prehistoric Egypt|Prehistoric period]].<ref name=":21">{{Cite journal |last1=Klemm |first1=Dietrich |last2=Klemm |first2=Rosemarie |last3=Murr |first3=Andreas |date=2001 |title=Gold of the Pharaohs β 6000 years of gold mining in Egypt and Nubia |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S089953620100094X |journal=Journal of African Earth Sciences |language=en |volume=33 |issue=3β4 |pages=643β659 |doi=10.1016/S0899-5362(01)00094-X|bibcode=2001JAfES..33..643K |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Gold mining in Egypt involved both surface mining, such as panning for gold in riverbeads, and underground mining, where tunnels were dug to extract gold-bearing quartz veins.<ref name=":21" /> During the [[Bronze Age]], sites in the [[Eastern Desert]] became a great source of gold mining for nomadic Nubians, who used two-hand [[mallet]]s and grinding [[Extractive metallurgy|ore extraction]]. By the [[Old Kingdom of Egypt|Old Kingdom]], the oval mallet was introduced for mining. By the [[Middle Kingdom of Egypt|Middle Kingdom]], stone mortars to process ores and a new gold-washing technique were introduced. During the [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]], Nubian mining expanded under [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] occupation with the invention of the [[Mill (grinding)|grinding mill]].<ref name=":21" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Klemm |first1=Rosemarie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ky8bVJ_fYEAC |title=Gold and Gold Mining in Ancient Egypt and Nubia: Geoarchaeology of the Ancient Gold Mining Sites in the Egyptian and Sudanese Eastern Deserts |last2=Klemm |first2=Dietrich |date=2012-12-13 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-3-642-22508-6 |pages=3β9 |language=en}}</ref> Gold was associated with the sun god [[Ra]] and was believed to be eternal and indestructible, symbolising the pharaoh's divine power and afterlife.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Botros |first=N.S. |date=2015 |title=Gold in Egypt: Does the future get worse or better? |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S016913681400345X |journal=Ore Geology Reviews |language=en |volume=67 |pages=189β207 |doi=10.1016/j.oregeorev.2014.11.018|bibcode=2015OGRv...67..189B |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Gold has also been found in the tombs of [[Tutankhamun]] and other pharaohs.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The art and culture of ancient Egypt: studies in honor of Dorothea Arnold |date=2015 |publisher=The Egyptological Seminar of New York |isbn=978-0-9816120-2-7 |editor-last=Arnold |editor-first=Dorothea |series=Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar |location=New York, NY |editor-last2=Oppenheim |editor-first2=Adela |editor-last3=Goelet |editor-first3=Ogden}}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)