Iron beams found in Ptolemy gold mines – History

The iron chains dating back to the Ptolemy period were found in the 3rd century Ghozza in the eastern desert of Egypt. These are one of the oldest bonds ever in the Mediterranean, and extremely rare discoveries have been found in Egypt, especially directly related to mining. They also provide new information about the Ghozza miners, a group of free and forced laborers.

The Eastern Desert is a large extension of the Sahara Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, with coveted natural resources including gold, copper, iron, gemstones and other hard rocks. Gold was mined there for thousands of years, reaching its peak during the New Kingdom (1500-1000 BCE), and then reaching new heights during the Greek era (332-30 BCE). The Ptolemy opened nearly 40 mines in the eastern desert, and Ghozza was the northernmost of them, opening in the second half of the 3rd century BC.

Workers in Ghozza live in a designed village with residential areas on streets, administrative buildings and bathrooms. This is very different from the settings in other mines. Workers in the north of Somerth were one of the earliest mines opened by Ptolemy I in the 310s B.C., living in protected dormitories. Ghozza’s residence is not protected, and among the hundreds of ostrichs (slicing fragments used as writing surfaces), several refer to the wages paid by miners. Bondage is the first archaeological evidence that miners in Ghozza are on the way with wage income.

The chains were found in an area east of the village, known as District 44. The buildings in the department appear to have been used for storage, food preparation and maintenance of metal objects. Two groups of bondage were found in District 44. A group consists of seven tripods, with two articulated links placed in a pit where the pit cut into the corridor floor. The second consists of four links and two ring-shaped pieces, with other iron scattered on the floor of another room. They inevitably bind humans (with ropes) by closing them around one’s ankles.

The design of the bondage is very similar to the one found in the silver mine in Laurion, about 30 miles south of Athens. They also resemble one of the only descriptions of a shack rope in Greek art: a man holding a bucket and a sponge ankle, an interior image of the loft black character Kylix ca. 490-480 Found in Naples, now in Rijksmuseum can Oudheden.

The discovery of bondage in Ghozza shows that at least a portion of the labor force is composed of forced labor. The exact living conditions of these people are not clear, as their residence has not been determined yet, and in fact, the setting of the village seems to indicate that the population can generally move freely. So far, more than half of the villages have been excavated and excavations will continue in a bid to identify any containment areas.

Meanwhile, the discovery of the bondage found in Ghozza reminds the harsh reality faced by workers in the Ptolemy gold mine. At the grandeur of Egypt’s wealth and the momentum of the eastern desert, the history of exploitation. The gold extracted from these mines helped fund the ambitions of Egyptian rulers, but it came at a huge human cost.