Travels in the Upper Egyptian deserts — Text and Context

he Nile not far from Thebes, to Kossair there ran the great trade-route with Arabia, Persia, and India; from Suez to Koptos there was a route by which the traders from Syria often travelled; from Edfu to Berenice there was a trade-route for the produce of Southern Arabia and the ancient land of Pount; while other roads from point to point of the Nile were often used as short-cuts. Secondly, in this desert there were very numerous gold mines, the working of which was one of the causes which made Egypt the richest country of the ancient world. And thirdly, the ornamental stones which were to be quarried in the hills were in continuous requisition for the buildings and statuary of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Rome.

There is much to be said in regard to the gold-mining, but here space will not permit of more than the most cursory review of the information. Gold was used in Egypt at a date considerably prior to the beginning of written history in Dynasty I., and there are many archaic objects richly decorated with that metal. The situation of many of the early cities of the Nile valley is due solely to this industry. When two cities of high antiquity are in close proximity to one another on opposite banks of the river, as is often the case in Upper Egypt, one generally finds that the city on the western bank is the older of the two. In the case of Diospolis Parva and Khenoboskion, which stand opposite to one another, the former, on the west bank, is the more ancient and is the capital of the province, and the latter, on the east bank, does not date earlier than Dynasty VI. Of Ombos and Koptos, the former, on the west bank, has prehistoric cemeteries around it; while the latter, on the east bank, dates from Dynasty I. at the earliest. Hieraconpolis and Eileithyiapolis stand opposite to each other, and the former, which is on the west bank, is certainly the more ancient. Of Elephantine and Syene, the latter, on the east bank, is by far the less ancient. And in the case of Pselchis and Baki (Kubbân), the former, on the west bank, has near it an archaic fortress; while the latter, on the east bank, does not date earlier than Dynasty XII. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that most of the early cities were engaged in gold-mining, and despatched caravans into the Eastern Desert for that purpose. These cities were usually built on the western bank of the river, since the main routes of communication from end to end of Egypt passed along the western desert. Mining stations had, therefore, to be founded on the eastern bank opposite to the parent cities; and these stations soon became cities themselves as large as those on the western shore. Thus the antiquity of the eastern city in each of these cases indicates at least that same antiquity for the mining of gold.

Illustration: Desert vegetation. The Coloquintida plant.

Illustration: A near view of the Coloquintida plant. Photographed in the Wady Abâd.]

Throughout what is known as the old kingdom, gold was used in ever-increasing quantities, but an idea of the wealth of the mines will best be obtained from the records of the Empire. About 250,000 grains of gold were drawn by the Vizir Rekhmara in taxes from Upper Egypt, and this was but a small item in comparison with the taxes levied in kind. A king of a north Syrian state wrote to Amonhotep III., the Pharaoh of Egypt, asking for gold, and towards the end of his letter he says: “Let my brother send gold in very large quantities, without measure, and let him send more gold to me than he did to my father; for in my brother’s land gold is as common as dust.” To the god Amon alone Rameses III. presented some 26,000 grains of gold, and to the other gods he gave at the same time very large sums. In later times the High Priest of Amon was made also director of the gold mines, and it was the diverting of this vast wealth from the crown to the church which was mainly responsible for the fall of the Ramesside line.

A subject must here be introduced which will ever remain of interest to the speculative. Some have thought that the southern portion of this desert is to be identified with the Ophir of the Bible, and that the old gold-workings here are none other than “King Solomon’s Mines.” In the Book of Kings one reads, “And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.” Ophir cannot be identified with Arabia, since there is no gold there; and hence one may seek this land of ancient wealth at the southern end of the Eastern Egyptian Desert. If it is argued that the Hebrews would have found difficulties in carrying on mining operations unmolested in Egyptian territory, it may be contended on the other hand that King Solomon may have made some bargain with the Pharaoh: for example, that the former might mine in a certain tract of desert if the latter might cut timber in the Lebanon. The purchase of cedar-wood by the Egyptians is known to have taken place at about this period, payment in gold being made; and therefore it does not require an undue stretch of the imagination to suppose that the Hebrews themselves mined the gold. Again, at the time when King Solomon reigned in all his glory in Palestine, the short-lived Pharaohs of Egypt sat upon tottering thrones, and were wholly unable to protect the Eastern Desert from invasion. The Egyptians often state that they encountered hostile forces in this land, and these may not always have consisted of Bedwin marauders.

No savant has accepted for a moment the various theories which place Ophir at the southern end of the African continent; and the most common view is that Solomon obtained his gold from the land of Pount, so often referred to in Egyptian inscriptions. This country is thought to have been situated in the neighbourhood of Suakin; but, as Professor Naville points out, it is a somewhat vague geographical term, and may include a large tract of country to the north and south of this point. One cannot imagine the Hebrews penetrating very far over the unknown seas to the perilous harbours of Middle Africa: one pictures them more easily huddled in the less dangerous ports of places such as Kossair or Berenice, or at farthest in that of Suakin. It is thus quite probable that some of the gold-workings in the desert here described are actually King Solomon’s Mines, and that the country through which the reader will be conducted is the wonderful Ophir itself. Certainly there is no one who can state conclusively that it is not.

Work continued with unabated energy during the later periods of Egyptian history, and the Persian, Greek, and Roman treasuries were filled consecutively with the produce of the mines. Several classical writers make reference to these operations, and sometimes one is told the actual name and situation of the workings. Diodorus gives a description of the mines in the Wady Alagi, and tells how the work was done. The miners wore a lamp tied to their forehead. The stone was carried to the surface by children, and was pounded in stone mortars by iron pestles. It was then ground to a fine powder by old men and women. This powdered ore was washed on inclined tables, the residue being placed in earthen crucibles with lead, salt, and tin for fluxes, and was there baked for five days. Agatharchides describes how the prisoners and negroes hewed out the stone, and, with unutterable toil, crushed it in mills and washed out the grains of gold. The Arabic historian, El Macrizi, states that during the reign of Ahmed ben Teilun there was great activity in the mining industry throughout the Eastern Desert, and Cufic inscriptions of this date found in the old workings confirm this statement. From then, until modern times, however, little work was done; but in recent years, as the reader will no doubt know, many of the ancient workings have been reopened, and one must admit that if these are really to be regarded as King Solomon’s Mines, that potentate must have had a somewhat lower opinion of Ophir than tradition indicates.

Illustration: One of the riding-camels.

Illustration: One of the camels.]

The other cause for the ancient activity in the Eastern Desert was, as has been said, the need of ornamental stone for the making of vases, statues, and architectural accessories. From the earliest times bowls and vases of alabaster, breccia, diorite, and other fine stones were used by the Egyptians, and the quarries must have already formed quite a flourishing industry. Soon the making of statuettes, and later of statues, enlarged this industry, and with the growth of civilisation it steadily increased. The galleries of the Cairo Museum, and those of European museums, are massed with statues and other objects cut in stone brought from the hills between the Nile and the Red Sea. The breccia quarries of Wady Hammamât were worked from archaic to Roman days; the Tourquoise Mountains, not far from Kossair, supplied the markets of the ancient world; white granite was taken from the hills of Um Etgal; there were two or three alabaster quarries in constant use; and in the time of the Roman Empire the famous Imperial porphyry was quarried in the mountains of Gebel Dukhân. One may still see blocks of breccia at Hammamât, of granite at Um Etgal, or of porphyry at Dukhân, lying abandoned at the foot of the hills, although numbered and actually addressed to the Cæsars. The towns in which the quarrymen lived still stand in defiance of the years, and the traveller who has the energy to penetrate into the distant valleys where they are situated may there walk through streets untrodden since the days of Nero and Trajan, and yet still littered with the chippings from the dressing of the blocks.

In the old days the provisioning of the mining and quarrying settlements must have taxed the ingenuity even of the Egyptians; and the establishing of workable lines of communication with the distant Nile must have required the most careful organisation. The caravans bringing food were of great size, for there were often several thousands of hungry miners to be fed. In Dynasty VI. one reads of 200 donkeys and 50 oxen being used in the transport, and in Dynasty XI. 60,000 loaves of bread formed the daily requirements in food of one expedition. In late Ramesside times the food of an expedition of some 9000 men was carried on ten large carts, each drawn by six yoke of oxen, while porters “innumerable” are said to have been employed. The families of the workmen generally lived on the spot, and these also had to be fed—a fact which is indicated, too, by an inscription which states that in one expedition each miner required twenty loaves of bread per diem.

Whenever this organisation broke down the consequences must have been awful. In this quarrying expedition in Ramesside times, consisting of 9000 men, 10 per cent of them died from one cause or another; and later writers speak of the “horrors” of the mines. In summer the heat is intense in the desert, and the wells could not always have supplied sufficient water. The rocks are then so hot that they cannot be touched by the bare hand, and one’s boots are little protection to the feet. Standing in the sunlight, the ring has to be removed from one’s finger, for the hot metal burns a blister upon the flesh. After a few hours of exercise there is a white lather upon the lips, and the eyes are blinded with the moisture which has collected around them; and thus what the quarrymen and miners must have suffered as they worked upon the scorching stones no tongue can tell.

In ancient Egyptian times the camel was regarded as a curious beast from a far country, and was seldom, if ever, put to any use in Egypt. Only three or four representations of it are now known, and it never occurs amongst any of the animals depicted upon the walls of the tombs, although bears, elephants, giraffes, and other foreign and rare creatures, are there shown. It was an Asiatic animal, and was not introduced into Egypt as an agent of transportation until the days of the ubiquitous Romans. Donkeys, oxen, and human beings were alone used in Pharaonic days for transporting the necessities of the labourers and the produce of their work; and probably the officials were carried to and fro in sedan-chairs. Even in Roman days there is nothing to show that the camel was very largely employed, and one may not amuse oneself too confidently with the picture of a centurion of the Empire astride the hump of the rolling ship of the desert.

Nowadays, of course, one travels entirely by camel in the desert. For an expedition of fifteen days or so one generally requires about a dozen camels all told, and one or two guides. Some of the animals carry the water in portable tanks; others are loaded with the tents and beds; and others carry the boxes of tinned food and bottled drinks. The whole caravan rattles and bumps as it passes through the echoing valleys, and one’s cook rises from amidst a clattering medley of saucepans and kettles which are slung around his saddle. The camels are obtained, at the rate of two to three shillings per diem, from some Shêkh, who holds himself more or less responsible for one’s safety. With a steady steed and a good saddle there are few means of locomotion so enjoyable as camel-riding. Once the art is learnt it is never forgotten, and after the tortures of the first day or so of the first expedition, one need never again suffer from stiffness, though many months may elapse between the journeys. This preliminary suffering is due to one’s inability at the outset to adjust the muscles to the peculiar motion; but the knowledge comes unconsciously after a while and ever remains.

One jogs along at the rate of about four and a half or five miles an hour, and some thirty miles a-day is covered with ease. The baggage camels travel at about three miles an hour. They start first, are passed during the morning, catch one up at the long rest for luncheon, are again passed during the afternoon, and arrive about an hour after the halt has been called. If possible, all the camels drink every second day, but they are quite capable of going strongly for three or four days without water, and, when really necessary, can travel for a week or more through a land without wells.

While the Mines Department was in existence experiments were tried with automobiles and motor bicycles, which were by no means unsuccessful. Many of the main roads in the Eastern Desert pass over hard gravel, and a motor may be driven with safety over the unprepared camel tracks. If wells were sunk every ten or fifteen miles, there would be no dangers to be feared from a breakdown; and under favourable circumstances the journey from the Nile to the Red Sea might be accomplished in a morning. In the future one may picture the energetic tourist leaving his Luxor or Cairo hotel, whirling over the open plains where now one crawls, rushing through the valleys in which the camel-rider lingers, penetrating to the remote ruins and deserted workings, and emerging breathless on to the golden coast of the sea, to wave his handkerchief to his friends upon the decks of the Indian liners.

The time must surely come when the owners of automobiles in Egypt will sicken of the short roads around Cairo, and will venture beyond the garden wall towards the rising sun. Whether it will be that the re-working of the gold mines and the quarries of ornamental stone will attract the attention of these persons to this wonderful wilderness, or that the enterprising automobilists will pave the way for the miners and the quarrymen, it is certain that some day the desert will blossom with the rose once more, and the rocks reverberate with the sound of many voices. Had I now in my two open hands pearls, diamonds, and rubies, how gladly would I give them—or some of them—for the sight of the misty mountains of the Eastern Desert, and for the feel of the sharp air of the hills! One looks forward with enthusiasm to the next visit to these unknown regions, and one cannot but feel that those who have it in their power to travel there are missing much in remaining within the walls of the little garden of the Nile. One hears in imagination the camels grunting as their saddles are adjusted; one feels the tingle of the morning air; and one itches to be off again, “over the hills and far away,” into the solitary splendour of the desert.

TO THE QUARRIES OF WADY HAMMAMÂT.

The so-called Breccia Quarries of Wady Hammamât are known to all Egyptologists by name, owing to the important historical inscriptions which are cut on the rocks of the valley. In reality the stone quarried there was mainly tuff, or consolidated volcanic ash; and the real name of the locality is Wady Fowakhîeh, “the Valley of the Pots”; but such niceties do not trouble the average archæologist. Many of the inscriptions were copied by Lepsius, the late German Egyptologist, and further notes were made by Golénischeff, a Russian savant; but except for these two persons no Egyptologist has studied the quarries. They have been seen, however, on a few occasions by Europeans; and, as the caravan road to Kossair passes along the valley in which they are situated, they are known to all the natives who have crossed the desert at this point. In November 1907 I found it possible to visit this historic site, and I was fortunate enough to obtain the companionship of three English friends who happened, very opportunely, to be in search of mild excitement at the time.

We set out from Luxor one morning in November, our caravan consisting in all of twenty-three camels, nine of which were ridden by our four selves, my servant, two guards, the Shêkh of the camelmen, and the guide, while fourteen were loaded with the three tents, the baggage, and the water-tanks, and were tended by a dozen camelmen who made the journey mainly on foot. Our road led eastwards from Luxor past the temple of the goddess Mut at Karnak, reflected in its sacred lake, and so along the highroad towards the rising sun. The day was cool, and a strong invigorating breeze raced past us, going in the same direction. Before us, as we crossed the fields, the sunlit desert lay stretched behind the soft green of the tamarisks which border its edge. Away to the right the three peaks of the limestone hills, which form the characteristic background of Thebes, rose into the sunlight; and to the left one could discern the distant ranges behind which we were to penetrate.

On reaching the desert we turned off northwards towards these hills, skirting the edge of the cultivated land until we should pick up the ancient road which leaves the Nile valley some twenty miles north of Luxor. After luncheon and a rest in the shade of the rustling tamarisks the ride was continued, and we did not again dismount until, in the mid-afternoon, the Coptic monastery which is situated behind the town of Qus, and which marks the beginning of the road to the Red Sea, was reached; and here the camp was pitched. The quiet five-hours’ ride of about twenty miles had sufficed to produce healthy appetites in the party, and, when the sun went down and the air turned cold, we were glad to attack an early dinner in the warmth of the mess-tent—one of the camel-boxes serving as a table, and the four saddles taking the place of chairs.