Gold of the Pharaohs - 6000 years of gold mining in Egypt and Nubia

The legendary wealth in gold of ancient Egypt seems to correspond with an unexpected high number of gold production sites in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Nubia. This contribution introduces briefly the general geology of these vast regions and discusses the geology of the different varieties of the primary gold occurrences (always related to auriferous quartz mineralization in veins or shear zones) as well as the variable physico-chemical genesis of the gold concentrations. The development of gold mining over time., from Predynastic (ca. 3000 BC) until the end of Arab gold production times (about 1350 AD), including the spectacular Pharaonic periods is outlined. with examples of its remaining artefacts, settlements and mining sites in remote regions of the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Nubia. Finally, some estimates on the scale of gold production are presented. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.