Travels in the Upper Egyptian deserts

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

Mons Claudianus. The same doorway—nearer view.

Pl. xxiii.

In the neighbourhood of Fatîreh we noticed several rough workings in the rocks, near which there were often a few ruined huts. These are the remains of ancient gold mines, worked by the Egyptians and the Romans. There are said to be many old mines in this neighbourhood, and an attempt has been made in recent years to reopen some of them, though without much success. In an inscription of Dynasty XVIII. (B.C. 1580-1350) one reads of “the gold of the desert behind Koptos,” which city was situated on the Nile a few miles south of Keneh; and, although most of the Koptos metal was obtained from the region of Wady Fowakhîeh, of which the reader will have heard in a previous chapter, some of the gold may have been mined in the Fatîreh neighbourhood at that date, as it certainly was in Roman times. The subject is one of such interest that I may be permitted to mention here something of the methods of working the gold employed by the ancient.

A full account is given by Diodorus, who obtained his information from Agatharcides, of the mines which are situated in the Eastern Desert farther to the south; and, as the methods were no doubt similar in both districts, the information enables one to reconstruct the scenes which these hills of Fatîreh looked down upon two thousand years ago.

The persons who worked the mines were mainly criminals and prisoners of war; but with these there were many unjustly accused men of good breeding, and those who had by some political action earned the Pharaoh’s or the Emperor’s wrath. Frequently this class of prisoner was banished to the mines, together with all the members of his family, and these also were obliged to labour for the king’s profit. No distinctions were made at the mines between the classes, but all suffered together, and all were weighed down with fetters by night and by day. There was little or no chance of escape, for sentries were posted on every hill-top, and the soldiers were ready to give chase through the waterless desert should a man elude the watchman. These soldiers were all of foreign extraction, and the chances were heavy against their understanding the speech of the prisoners; and thus they were seldom able to be bribed or introduced into a scheme of escape.

The work was carried on day after day without cessation, and always the labourers were under the eye of a merciless overseer, who showered blows upon them at the slightest provocation. In order to keep down the expenses, no clothes were provided for the prisoners, and often they possessed not a rag to hide their nakedness. Nor were they allowed to give a moment’s time to the bathing or care of their bodies. In good or in bad health they were forced to work; and neither the weakness of extreme age, nor the fever of sickness, nor the infirmities of women, were regarded as proper cause for the idleness even of an hour. All alike were obliged to labour, and were urged thereto by many blows. Thus the end of a man who had been banished to these mines was always the same: fettered and unwashed, covered with bruises and disfigured by pestilence, he dropped dead in his chains under the lash of the relentless whip. The sufferings of life were such that death was hailed with joy, and it was the dying alone who possessed a single thought of happiness.

Those who have seen the old workings on the exposed face of the rocks, and have known the coldness of the winter nights and the intense heat of the summer days, will alone realise what tortures these poor wretches must have suffered. One might well think that the wind which went moaning down the valley as we rode along the path to the Nile still carried the groans of the sufferers, and that the whispering rocks still echoed the cries of utter despair. Looking at the huts where these people lived and the mines where they laboured, one could not regard the record of their woe, which Diodorus makes known to us, as a tale of long ago. Two thousand years, one may repeat, is not really a period which we should regard as long; and while walls stand upright and mines gape open, the sound of lamentation will not be hushed in these valleys.

The rock from which the gold was obtained, says Diodorus, was very hard; but the miners softened it by lighting fires under it, after which it could almost be broken with the hands. When it was thus prepared, thousands of prisoners were set to breaking it with iron tools, while the overseer directed their labours towards the veins of gold. To the strongest of the men iron picks were given, and with these, though wielded unskilfully and with great labour, they were made to attack the hillside. The galleries, following the veins, twisted and turned, so that at the depth of a few feet there was no glimmer of daylight; and for this reason the miners each carried a small lamp bound to their forehead. As the blocks of quartz were broken by the picks they were carried to the surface by the children of the captives, who formed constant procession up and down the dark galleries. These fragments were then gathered up by youths and placed in stone mortars, in which they were pounded with iron pestles until the ore was broken into pieces of the size of peas. The ore was then handed over to women and old men, who placed it in hand-mills, and thus ground it to powder. This powder was then placed upon a sloping surface, and a stream of water was poured over it which carried away the particles of stone but left the gold in position. This process of washing was repeated several times, until all foreign matter was eliminated and the gold dust became pure and bright. Other workmen then took the dust, and, after measuring it carefully, they poured it into an earthenware crucible; and having added a small quantity of lead, tin, salt, and bran, they closed the vessel with a tight-fitting lid, and placed it in a furnace for the space of five days. At the end of this time the crucible was set aside to cool, and on removing the lid it was found to contain pure gold ready to be dispatched to the Treasury.

To bear witness to the accuracy of this account one sometimes finds mortars and hand-mills lying amidst the ruins of the old mining settlements. At the mines of Um Garriat there are said to be thousands of these mills, and here at Fatîreh not a few are to be found. Sluices for washing the crushed ore have been observed in some of the old workings; and of the smelting crucibles remnants exist at Um Garriat and elsewhere.

Practically nothing is known of the methods employed by the Egyptians in earlier days, but they cannot have differed very greatly from those of the Roman period. There seems reason to suppose that less cruelty existed in dynastic times than in the days of the callous Romans; and in the following chapter an account will be given of a temple, a well, and a town built by King Sety I. for the benefit of the persons who were engaged in gold-mining.