Show OLD egypto COLT prof R D george ot the til diversity Iver sity of colorado suggests that the ancient egyptians drew the larger part of their gold from the old workings near cop toa latitude 26 degrees north and from the mountains some distance to the south the mountains to the south of coltos are probably the mines for which the kings of the tw fifth dynasty sacrificed the lives of many thousand men for the rule of egyptian kings who wanted gold was to invade nubia and take possession of the mines just as when they wanted copper they droe back the nomadic tribes of si nal and built fortresses to protect their miners the nubian gold workings of which prof george s are placed in an almost inaccessible mountain group surrounded on all sides by a waterless desert here aay be seen tunnels and shafts penetrating the mountains to almost unknown depths three hundred stone huts shelter mills used in pulverizing the ore immense cisterns once caught the scanty water from the upper slopes and near them stand the sloping tables on pulverized ore was washed records show that these mines were worl ed with little inter for twenty centuries by the egyptians and there is no means of knowing how long they were worked by the nubians before them in the inscriptions of the new em pire various kinds or grades of gold are mentioned and in one of the tell el adarna letters written during the eighteenth dynasty the king of baby ion accuses amenophes Ame nophis III of egypt of sending him a mass of base metal tor gold he sais the twenty minas of gold you sent me contained when melted down only five minas of pure gold so that the gold brick even then was not unknown |