gold in egypt. a historical introduction · the agent for transmuting base metals into gold was...

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De Re Metallica, 23, 2014 pp. 85-92© Sociedad Española para la Defensa del Patrimonio Geológico y MineroISSN: 1888-8615

GOLD IN EGYPT. A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

Fathi Habashi

Laval University, Quebec City, [email protected]

RESUMEN

El oro fue el uno de los primeros metales explotado por el hombre. Así ocurrió en el antiguo Egipto, contribu-yendo a que dicha nación fuese un gran Imperio. Los antiguos egipcios fueron capaces obtener objetos de oro pormartilleado en frío, produciendo láminas extremadamente finas para cubrir la madera. Luego se obtuvo por fundi-ción y más tarde, hubo intentos de transmutar metales base en oro.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Coptos, Wadi Hammamat, Nubia, cerbatana, fuelle, láminas de oro, fundición, transmutación.

ABSTRACT

Gold was the first metal exploited by man and this took place in ancient Egypt and rendered Egypt a largeempire. The ancient Egyptians were able to hammer gold and produce an extremely thin foil to cover wood. Later,there were attempts to transmute base metals into gold.

KEY WORDS: Coptos, Wadi Hammamat, Nubia, blowpipe, bellows, gold foil, casting, transmutation.

Recibido: 12 de diciembre, 2013 • Aceptado: 24 de enero, 2014

De Re Metallica 23 julio-diciembre 2014 2ª época

GOLD MINING IN ANCIENT EGYPT

From ancient times to the present day gold hasbeen valued by man. Egypt was the principal gold-producing country in ancient times.

Wadi Hammamat

Coptos, the present Quft on the eastern side ofthe River Nile, was the chief town of the Nomos ofHarawi and was once politically important, but underthe eleventh dynasty (2133–1991 BC) it was overshad-owed by Thebes, 50 km to the south, which becamethe capital of the Middle Kingdom (2133 BC) ofancient Egypt, the present day Luxor (Figure 1).Coptos was the world’s first gold boom town. It wasthere in the Wadi Hammamat (Figure 2) that alluvialgold had been washed down from the gold-bearing

Figure 1. Location of Coptos in Upper Egypt, the most ancient gold miningcenter.

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veins found later in the granite hills above. Accordingto Bayfield the region is rich with ancient Egyptianremains (Figures 3- 14) and was visited by manyEgyptologists. The region was exploited also as aquarry for building stones.

Figure 2. Present day Wadi Hammamat road leading to the gold deposits inthe Eastern Desert.

Figure 3. Ancient Egyptian remains in Wadi Hammamat (Bayfield).







Mining map

The world’s oldest mine map (Figure 15), which ismade on papyrus and held now at the Turin Museum(Museo Egizio di Torino) in Italy, shows the huts of theEgyptian miners, the road to the gold mines and the

hills within which the gold veins occurred. The map is0.4 x 2.8 m; it is believed that it was made during thereign of Ramses IV (1162–1156 BC). The scroll was foundin a tomb near Thebes shortly before 1824 when itappeared in Turin. Ruins of these huts can be seentoday at Fawakhir in the Eastern Desert.

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Figure 10. Ancient Egyptian remains in Wadi Hammamat (Bayfield). Figure 13. Ancient Egyptian remains in Wadi Hammamat (Bayfield).

Figure 9. Ancient Egyptian remains in Wadi Hammamat (Bayfield). Figure 12. Ancient Egyptian remains in Wadi Hammamat (Bayfield).



Nubia

In the old Egyptian language, the word nubia sig-nifies a gold field. By 1300 BC, underground mining ofvein gold was well established in Nubia underEgyptian control (Figure 3). There were over a 100mines in the area. A series of forts were built to pro-tect the flow of Nubian gold along the rich traderoutes. Egypt became the dominant power in theMiddle East, having the greatest gold-filled treasuryin the ancient world (Figure 16).

The ancient Egyptians did not have an importantport on the Mediterranean and all their trade wasthrough the Red Sea. Coptos was at the startingpoint of the two great routes leading to the coast ofthe Red Sea, one toward the port of Myos Hormos

and the other more southerly, toward the port ofShashirit (Berenice). Under the Pharaohs, the wholetrade of southern Egypt with the Red Sea passed overthese two roads.

Under the Ptolemys, and in Roman and Byzantinetimes, merchants followed the same roads for pur-poses of barter with the coasts of Zanzibar, SouthernArabia, India, and the Far East. This place and thesurrounding area were known for the richness of itsgold mines and semi-precious stones. A temple wasbuilt there by Tahutmes III, who ruled from 1503 to1450 BC and was co-regent with Queen Hatshepsutfor 21 years. The area that it occupied was abouttwice as large as his temple at Madinet Habu inLuxor.

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Figure 15. The world’s oldest mine map.

Figure 16. Gold mines in Nubia.

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GOLD METALLURGY IN ANCIENT EGYPT

The ancient Egyptians did not leave documentsdescribing the production of gold but they madepaintings on the tomb walls describing their opera-tions. In the latter part of the Second Century BCthe Greek geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus visitedEgypt and described among other things the workingof the gold mines and the methods of extractionemployed. Diodorus Siculus also travelled in Egypt inabout 60 BC, but in his Bibliotheca Historica drewlargely upon the account given by Agatharchides ofthe working of gold. His description was given byNotton in 1974.

In essence, the rock is broken by fire, transportedout of the mine, crushed and ground into fine pow-der, then washed with water on an inclined board toremove away the earth and collect the gold powderat the bottom (Figure 17). A certain weight is thenput into earthen jars, mixing with it a lump of lead,salt, little tin, and adding thereto barley bran andthen put on a close- fitting lid, and smearing it overcarefully with mud then baked in a kiln for five daysto get pure gold.

It must have been noticed in an early date thatblowing the fire with breath or exposure to powerfulwind resulted in its intensification. This observationmight have been the reason for improving furnaceoperation by using blowpipes and later bellows.Blowpipes had the advantage that it could direct ajet of air to the fire to increase the temperature ofthe charcoal. This is more effective than the randomcurrents of air blown in by the wind. Egyptian wallpaintings show blowpipes in use with small furnacesas early as the Fifth Dynasty (2690–2420 BC) (Figure18).

Gradually, furnaces enlarged and work becamemore complicated; the smith found the blowpipe notenough for his purpose. This led to the invention ofbellows made of goat skin with a tube leading to thefire. Egyptian wall paintings show the workmenstanding with each foot on a bellow (Figure 19). Byresting his weight on one foot, he drives the air fromthat bellows into the fire, while by lifting the otherbellow with a cord he causes it to be filled with air.After a time, two bellows were needed, each smithoperating a pair. In this way the ancient Egyptianswere able to melt gold (Figure 20). Figure 21 showsa solid gold statue of god Amun now in theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.


Figure 17. In a tomb in Beni Hassan dating about 2000 BC, gold washing is seen on the left. The standing figures in the center seem tobe working with a gravity concentrating table. In the upper right the gold powder is being put in the earthen jar with a close-fitting lidfor the refining operation.

Figure 18. Ancient Egyptian wall painting showing the use of the blowpipes toincrease the temperature of fire.

Figure 19. Ancient Egyptian wall painting showing the use of bellows to blowair in a fire.

Figure 20. Ancient Egyptian wall painting dating from about 1450 BC in thetomb of Rekhmire, vizier to Thothmes III at Thebes, showing metal workerscasting molten gold in the moulds.


GILDING

Because of its occurrence in nature in minuteamounts, gold was an expensive metal. It was notnecessary to have articles made of solid gold since itwas possible to prepare gold in thin foils and coverthe object completely with them so that they appearas if they were made of gold. Gilding is the art ofapplying and permanently attaching gold leaf or golddust to surfaces of wood, stone, and metals. Gold is

the most malleable of metals, and can be reduced toextremely thin leaves by hammering. Such leavessometimes do not exceed 0.1 mm (1,000 Ǻ) in thick-ness, and transmit green light. One gram of gold canbe made to cover nearly 1 m2 of surface. Manyobjects gilded by the Egyptians have survived to thisday and the treasure of Tut Ankh Amoun’s tomb isone example of their skill (Figure 22. The Egyptiansappear to have been the earliest practitioners of theart of making thin gold foil and the illustrations ontombs at Saqqara and Thebes show their goldbeatersworking together with gold founders and goldsmiths(Figure 23).Figure 21. A solid gold statue.

Figure 22. Thin gold foil covering a wooden statue from an ancient Egyptiantomb.

Figure 23. An ancient Egyptian wall painting showing a worker preparing goldfoils by beating.

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Man valued gold for its lustrous color and itsresistance to tarnishing and so it was used for specialdecorative ornaments and jewellery. The venerationreserved for gold by the led the ancient Egyptians tohammer it into thin sheets to make masks for thedead (Figure 24).

THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE

Thanks to the gold which the Pharaohs were min-ing in the Eastern Desert that made Egypt a greatempire (Figure 25. Luxor is the site of the AncientEgyptian city of Thebes the great capital of Egyptduring the Middle (2060-1802 BC) and New Kingdom(1550-1069 BC). The archaeological remains of Thebesare a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at itsheight.

GOLD AND ALCHEMY

To the medieval alchemists gold has been regard-ed as a metal of perfection. They identified it withthe sun by virtue of its bright yellow color and it wasgiven the symbol of a circle with a dot in the center.Gold was so precious that from earliest times manhas left no stone unturned in searching for it innature. It is not surprising, therefore, that humansshould have sought to convert other metals into gold.The agent for transmuting base metals into gold wasknown as the philosopher’s stone. In addition to its

transmutation power, the stone was believed to havethe properties of a universal medicine for longevityand immortality. The attempts to transmute basemetals into gold and to prolong life indefinitely, con-tributed much to modern chemistry in the form ofnew chemical substances and laboratory techniques.

Ancient Egypt is considered the birthplace ofalchemy. Zosimos (ca. 350–420 AD), who taught inAlexandria, is the earliest writer known to have prac-ticed alchemy. Because of their lack of knowledge ofthe composition of common substances somealchemists viewed many ordinary chemical reactionsas transmutations. For example, the deposition ofcopper on a piece of iron placed in a solution of bluevitriol (copper sulfate), a reaction known sinceRoman times, was assumed by some to be a transmu-tation of iron into copper until the late Renaissance.Similarly, the mineral galena, PbS, on heating, liber-ates sulfur dioxide and appears to be transformedinto silver, which is often present as an impurity ingalena.

Through the centuries gold-making has been alter-nately encouraged and banned by monarchs and theChurch. For example, Diocletian (245–316 AD),Emperor of Rome from 284 to 313, fearing that theEgyptians (Egypt was then under the domination ofthe Roman Empire) might become powerful throughtheir knowledge of alchemy ordered in AD 296 allbooks and manuscripts ‘‘which treated the art ofmaking gold and silver’’ to be burned. Consequently,only few Egyptian alchemical works have been pre-served. During medieval time, European kings andprinces supported alchemists at their courts hoping toacquire wealth through their work. Gold ornaments


Figure 24. Gold mask for Tut Ankh Amoun.

Figure 25. Egyptian Empire.


have been found in Egyptian tombs of the prehistoricStone Age, and the Egyptian goldsmiths of the earli-est dynasties were skilful artisans.

EPILOGUE

Gold, the first metal used by man, has today aspecial place among metals. It plays an importantrole in society and in world economics. It causedunprecedented mass migrations in North America,South Africa, and Australia. It was the cause of theBoer War 1899-1902. It was responsible for creatingmany large cities like San Francisco, Johannesburg,and Sydney. It is highly prized, has been the inspira-tion of numerous myths, was the ultimate goal ofalchemists, stored in the vaults of banks, widely ondisplay in oriental bazaars, and is generously used indecorating churches and temples.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author acknowledges with thanks the use ofFigures of ancient Egyptian remains from WadiHammamat supplied by Su Bayfield.

SUGGESTED READINGS

S. Bayfield, “Egyptian Monuments”, http://egyptsites. word-press.com/2010/09/14/wadi-hammamat/

F. Habashi, Gold. History, Metallurgy, Culture, MétallurgieExtractive Québec, Québec City, Canada 2009. Distributedby Laval University Bookstore, www.zone.ul.ca

F. Habashi, Chemistry and Metallurgy in the Great Empires,Métallurgie Extractive Québec, Québec City, Canada 2009.Distributed by Laval University Bookstore, www.zone.ul.ca

F.T.H. James, Gold Technology in Ancient Egypt. Gold Bulletin5(2), 38-42(1972).

A. Lucas, Ancient Egyptian Materials & Industries, Arnold, Lon-don 948.

J.H.F. Notton, “Ancient Egyptian Gold Refining”, Gold Bulletin7(2), 50-56 (1974).

gold in egypt. a historical introduction · the agent for transmuting base metals into gold was...

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