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Ancient Mining and Smelting Activities in the W adi A bu G erida Area, Central E astern D esert, E gypt: Preliminary Results
Author(s) -
ElRahman Y. Abd,
Surour A. A.,
El Manawi A. H. W.,
Rifai M.,
Motelib A. Abdel,
Ali W. K.,
El Dougdoug A. M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
archaeometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1475-4754
pISSN - 0003-813X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2012.00728.x
Subject(s) - smelting , hematite , metallurgy , copper , pottery , wüstite , geology , charcoal , chemistry , mineralogy , geography , materials science , archaeology
Old mining and smelting features in the A bu G erida area have been studied using field observations, microscopy and SEM – EDS to detect the ores that were exploited in antiquity. There are two groups of shafts in the area. The first group encloses secondary copper minerals and is associated with glassy slags containing copper prills. The other group is associated with hematite that was extracted and transferred to a smelting station to the west of the mining site, where iron slags and charcoal fragments are found. These slags are composed mainly of wüstite, fayalite–kirschsteinite and traces of metallic iron. Pottery fragments from this area were dated to the P tolemaic P eriod, which may be the age of iron exploitation. Copper might have been exploited earlier.