Archaeometallurgical expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula and the Eastern Desert of Egypt (2006, 2008)

Archaeometallurgical expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula and the Eastern Desert of Egypt (2006, 2008) Ali Abdel-Motelib, Michael Bode, Rita Hartmann, Ulrich Hartung, Andreas Hauptmann & Kristina Pfeiffer Key words Sinai Peninsula, Eastern Desert, Survey, Copper deposits, Metallurgy, Windpowered furnaces, Copper exchange, Maadi, Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan, Faynan, Timna, Predynastic, Late Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age, Trace elements, Lead isotope analysis, Provenance studies Abstract In this study we report on two archaeometallurgical expeditions (2006, 2008) of an interdisciplinary Egyptian-German team to the Sinai Peninsula and the Eastern Desert in Egypt. 27 mining, smelting and habitation sites were visited which date from the Late Chalcolithic to the Late Bronze Age. It was intended to clarify the prehistoric copper production in these regions and its influence on the supra-regional copper exchange between southern Canaan and Egypt, mainly between Maadi (near Cairo) and Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan and Tall Magass, Aqaba. In addition to the field work analytical investigations (chemical and lead isotope analyses) were performed on ores, slags and metal objects collected. Provenance studies revealed that Sinai ore was probably imported to the Nile valley along with copper ore from the Wadi Arabah deposits Timna and Faynan, and from Anatolia as well. The enormous potential of Sinai copper ore deposits is impressively demonstrated by gigantic metallurgical remains from the Early and Late Bronze Age. Recent mining activities in the Um Bogma area probably destroyed previous activities. Copper was apparently smelted in Sinai in windpowered furnaces known from the entire Eastern Mediterranean. Copper-metallurgical activities in the Eastern Desert are limited. Ancient deposits were probably exploited for green pigments, or for gold. Introduction Prehistoric cultural interaction between the Southern Levant and Egypt has been a focus of archaeological Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 investigations for many years. Alongside many other commodities such as wine, oil, cedar, turquoise and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, copper ores and metal were exchanged in the first half of the 4th millennium BC between the two regions and beyond. Excavations at Maadi/Egypt, located in the Nile Delta near modern Cairo (Rizkana & Seeher 1989), and at Tell Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan and Tell Al-Magass, located close to the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba in Jordan (Khalil & Schmidt 2009; Khalil 1992; Khalil & Riederer 1998) uncovered a range of copper artefacts, ore, and industrial debris that pose the question as to the origin of the metal and ore (Müller-Neuhof et al. 2003, 22-26; Khalil et al. 2003, 159-183; Khalil & Schmidt 2009, Hauptmann et al., 2009) (Figure 1). At Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan, where large amounts of metallurgical remains such as ore, slag, ingots, and many dozens of casting moulds (Pfeiffer 2009a) were unearthed, it is indicated that in the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age there was not only craft specialisation, but also a surplus in copper produced. For the Southern Levant the two ore districts of Timna and Faynan in the Wadi Arabah served as main sources for the production of copper (Hauptmann 1989, 121; 2000; 2007). Most of the copper artefacts analysed so far from the Southern Levant were made using ore from these deposits in the Wadi Arabah. As an exception, the collection of prestige items from the Nahal Mishmar hoard may be mentioned: the origin of its peculiar copper-arsenic-antimony-alloys remains unknown until today (Tadmor et al. 1995). As far as it is known, Maadi is located in an area devoid of copper mineralisations. The source of the copper artefacts and ore found at Maadi could also not be clearly answered by Pernicka & Hauptmann 3 4 Fig. 1: Geographical overview on the Sinai Peninsula and adjacent areas in the east (Southern Levant) and the west (Eastern Desert, Egypt) with the Nile Valley. Shown are localities mentioned in the text. 1 Maadi; 2 Aqaba with Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan and Tell Al-Magass; 3 Timna; 4 Faynan; 5 Wadi Homr / Sarbot El-Gamal; 6 Ras Butran; 7 Wadi Ba’Ba; 8 Bir Nasib II and Bir Nasib “Rod el-Aiar”; 9 Bir Nasib I; 10 Serabit El-Khadim; 11 Um Bogma (incl. mining area “45”); 12 Wadi Maghara; 13 Wadi Khareig; 14 Watiya, Sheikh Mukhsen, Nabi Salah; 15 Wadi El Regeita / Wadi Rimthi ; 16 St. Catherina; 17 Wadi El-Nefoukh (“Blue Valley”), Wadi Ahmar; 18 Ain Soukhna; 19 Gabal Dara; 20 Gebel Zeit; 21 Wadi Abu Greida; 22 Wadi Hamama; 23 Semna; 24 Wadi Tar and Wadi Samra. Note that Gebel Zeit (20) is a lead-silver deposit. (1989), but new discoveries at Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan (see below) raise the question whether copper deposits in the Wadi Arabah could have been suppliers for these objects. It is known that there was cultural interaction between Lower Egypt and the Levant, but the role of the Sinai Peninsula located in between has not been studied in detail, especially regarding the early use of copper ore deposits located in the Sinai desert. Since the 1970s scholars working in Sinai have stated that the copper deposits were at the earliest exploited in the Early Bronze Age II (Amiran et al. 1973; Beit-Arieh 1983; Ward 1991). Abdel-Motelib (2006) proposed a Predynastic age for some copper smelting sites at Wadi Homr near Serabit El-Khadim. It should be stated that the chronology of the Sinai Peninsula has been heavily debated and remains unclear (see Pfeiffer 2009b), and, additionally, the trade routes in and around Sinai are still for the most part unknown. The lack of knowledge also applies to the Eastern Desert. Apart from a few exceptions, Egyptian copper sources in the Eastern Desert are mostly unknown. For a better understanding of these complex exchange interconnections, and to disentangle the conglomerate of archaeological facts and assumptions, a solid basis of geological and archaeometallurgical data is necessary. The origin of copper in Predynastic Egypt, at Maadi as well as in Upper Egypt, has to be Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 reconsidered by new analyses of copper sources and objects. How important were the two major copper districts in the Southern Levant? Was copper from Timna or Faynan “traded” to Egypt? Or, alternatively, were sources in the Sinai Peninsula or the Egyptian Eastern Desert also exploited in the 4th millennium BC? The purpose of the present study is to identify and examine the potential ore resources available in the 4th millennium BC in order to answer some of these questions. Archaeological evidence suggests that in the Neolithic period the populations of the Sinai Peninsula had a complex and broad-reaching material culture, and this is true for the Early Bronze Age as well. Hence, it would come as a surprise if this region would not have been involved in the supraregional frame of cultural and technical development during the Chalcolithic. Which routes were used between Lower Egypt and the Southern Levant? The sea route surrounding the Sinai Peninsula and the land route passing through the Sinai are both options. To answer questions like these, field surveys and analytical studies are necessary. It is mainly the question of exchange relations between the Nile valley and the Southern Levant that made a geochemical / isotopic characterisation of the copper deposits in this part of the world necessary. While those located in the Wadi Arabah are sufficiently explored (Hauptmann 2007, 79ff.), the composition of the deposits in the Sinai Peninsula are a scientific lacuna. In a joint venture the Geological Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, the German Archaeological Institute (the Cairo branch and the Orient-Department, Berlin) and the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum conducted geological and mining-archaeological expeditions in 2006 (November 25th - Dec. 3rd) and in 2008 (March 2nd - 15th) to the south-western part of the Sinai Peninsula and in the northern part of the Egyptian Eastern Desert. The team consisted of the authors mentioned above. The 2006 expedition was to the south-western central Sinai with the copper-manganese mining district of Um Bogma, and to Serabit El-Khadim. During the second expedition in 2008, a selected number of sites and mines in the Eastern Desert were visited, followed by investigations of some more sites in the south-western Sinai. Here, ancient mines and early smelting / melting sites were visited and studied, and samples of ore, slag and metallurgic material were collected. The aim of these expeditions was to obtain geological and archaeometallurgical materials suitable for provenance studies through laboratory analysis to help clarify exchange relations and cultural interaction between Lower Egypt and the copper sources in the Southern Levant. We wanted to record and sample sites that had not been adequetly investigated; therefore, not all sites that were discovered and Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 5 Tab. 1: Chronology of Egypt, Sinai, and the Southern Levant from the Chalcolithic period to the Early Bronze Age according to calibrated radiocarbon data. described by previous scholars were visited. Such investigations were carried out, e. g., by Rothenberg (1979, 1987), who explored Southern and Central Sinai systematically in 15 seasons in the 1960s and 1970s. The archaeometallurgical part of these surveys was carried out by H.G. Bachmann and R.F. Tylecote. Parts of the results were published by Bachmann (1980) but the major part of the survey (Bachmann et al.) is unpublished. A comprehensive site catalogue from the Ophir-Expedition to Sinai was published by Beith-Arieh (2003), and some observations were made by Weisgerber (1991). All unpublished observations were made available to us and provided invaluable informations during our field work. The surveys were carried out just in time because modern mining for manganese has increased substantially destroying many of the ancient mining and metallurgical sites. In this contribution, we will describe a number of the sites we visited, and we will discuss the results of chemical, mineralogical and lead isotope analyses we performed at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and Material Sciences at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum. For clarification we added a chronological overview for the time periods in the Egypt, Sinai and the Southern Levant (Table 1). 6 Maadi, Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan and Tall Magass, and the 4th millennium metal exchange: the state of the art have been found exclusively in Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan, a specific contact between Maadi and the sites in the Wadi Arabah is suggested1 (Pfeiffer 2009a, 323ff.). In the first half of the 4 th millennium BC copper seems to have been exchanged connecting the Southern Levant and Predynastic Lower Egypt. The excavations in Maadi/Egypt, Tell Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan and Tell Al-Magass in the vicinity of Aqaba in Jordan (Figure 1) revealed traces of the copper exchange (Seeher 1990, 148ff.; Khalil 1992; Khalil &Riederer 1998; Müller-Neuhof et al. 2003, 22-26; Khalil et al. 2003, 159-183; Khalil & Schmidt 2009). From the Egyptian point of view, the moulds from Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan seem to constitute exciting evidence for an exchange relationship between Maadi and the southern Levant. On the other hand, it raises new questions, e. g., what about the copper deposits in Sinai and the Eastern Desert? Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan and Tell Al-Magass The excavation of the settlement Tell Hujayrat AlGhuzlan began in 1998 as a joint venture of the University of Jordan and the German Archaeological Institute. The assemblage of finds comprises the complete metallurgical chaîne opératoire: copper ore and slag, droplets and prills, copper ingots and final artefacts. The ore, of a total of about 4 - 6 kg, consist of green secondary copper minerals such as malachite, chrysocolla and others, and are crushed to pieces of ca. 0.5 – 2 cm size. In addition, a large amount of technical ceramics such as crucibles and ingot moulds was unearthed (Pfeiffer 2009a). The finds point to a standardised technology of copper production, ore processing, casting and smelting (Khalil et al. 2003; Pfeiffer 2009a). Metallurgical finds come from diverse stratigrafic contexts within the site’s architectural features, and they were recovered in various concentrations. Comparable artefacts were found in Tell Al-Magass as well, during the excavations in the 1980’s under the direction of Lutfi Khalil (Khalil & Riederer 1998, 1-9). The origin of the copper ore used for smelting could have been Timna or mineralisations a few kilometres to the south. It is also possible that the ore came from the ore district of Faynan some 120 km to the north (Hauptmann & Wagner 2007; Hauptmann et al. 2009). However, how the exchange and circulation of ore was organised still remains unclear. Archaeometallurgical residues indicate that at both sites copper production exceeded the inhabitants’ needs (Müller-Neuhof et al. 2003), and we assume that metal was exported to somewhere else. According to the number and shape of the moulds, the majority of copper probably was exported in the shape of rectangular and oval boat shaped ingots. Only oval shaped ingots have been found in Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan. The final destination is unknown, but we note that at Maadi, two rectangular copper ingots and one oval plano-convex ingot were excavated, which match with the clay moulds from Tell Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan. Due to the fact that, as far as it is known, these special types of ingot moulds Maadi The settlement of Maadi is the key site after which the Lower Egyptian Culture of the first half of the 4th millennium – as a counterpart of the Naqada-Culture in Upper Egypt - was named. Excavations from 1930 to the 1950s by M. Amer and I. Rizkana on behalf of the Cairo University (Rizkana & Seeher 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990; Seeher 1990) and more recent investigations undertaken by the German Archaeological Institute (Hartung 2003, 2004, Hartung et al. 2003) revealed evidence for relations to the Southern Levant including unusual architectural features, pottery and other objects. In the middle of the 4th millennium, i.e., in the EBA IA period in terms of southern Levantine chronology, Maadi had exchange with several settlements in southern Palestine, like Site H in Wadi Ghazzeh (Nahal Besor), Taur Ikhbeineh, Tel Halif, Nizzanim etc. (for summary with references Hartung 2001, 354-361). The exchange of goods seems to have been handled by “Canaanites” living at Maadi, at least temporarily (e.g., Seeher 1990, 153), and Lower Egyptians whose presence is attested in some of these settlements. Copper and copper ore were probably the most important reason of this interaction. Beside small metal objects like fishhooks, pins and needles, three or four axes and adzes and three ingots, a deposit of ca. 15 kg of sedimentary copper-manganese ore was recovered (Rizkana & Seeher 1989, 13ff.). It was suggested that this ore was used as green pigment (Rizkana & Seeher 1989, 17f.) for eye-paint, a purpose that is well known in predynastic Egypt. Copper prills and ash layers were found at Maadi, but no crucibles or other installations indicating for metallurgical activities could be discovered. Ingots (and perhaps also the axes) may have been also used as a kind of currency (Rizkana & Seeher 1989, 17). It is unknown if copper ore was smelted or if it was just worked at Maadi. The first chemical and mineralogical analysis of copper 1 There were found similar ingot moulds in Tell esh-Shuna in North Jordan, but their variety of shapes is slightly different from the objects in Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan (Rehren et al. 1996, 625 ff.). Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 and copper ore from Maadi suggested Timna and Faynan as possible sources for a few pieces, and a fragment of one of the axes high in nickel points to sources in south-west Anatolia (Pernicka & Hauptmann 1989, 137ff.). Since the amount and variety of copper finds at Maadi is not paralleled at any other site in Egypt, the settlement is thought to have played a major role in the network of copper supply in predynastic Egypt. On the other hand, the scale of this “trade” should not be overstated - the economy of the settlement was clearly based on agriculture and livestock breeding. Recent investigations have shown, for instance, that imported vessels at Maadi comprise not even 1% of the total pottery assemblage (Hartmann 2003, 179). With the end of Maadi in early EB IB, probably connected with the arrival of Upper Egyptian Naqada groups to the north, several of the settlements in southern Palestine have either been completely or partly abandoned. Not before the late 4th millennium, renewed Egyptian enterprises - now undertaken by the Naqada-Culture – are indicated by Egyptian trade posts in southern Palestine and the first occurrence of Egyptian pottery in settlements of the Southern Sinai mining district (for summary Hartung 2001, 384-388) . Exchange routes through the Sinai Peninsula The main route between Maadi and Southern Palestine could have been as it was called later the “Way of Horus” (Figure 1) crossing the Northern Sinai along the Mediterranean coast. During the Bronze Age a number of temporary camp sites (Oren 1973, 203; Oren & Gilead 1981, Oren & Yekutieli 1992, 380) served as way stations for the supply of the caravans until they reached Site H (respectively ‘En Besor during EB IB) in the east. Interestingly, at Site H copper ore originating in Faynan was found (Hauptmann 2007, 272), which might have been an exchange good for Egypt. More recently, evidence for metallurgical activities using copper ore from Faynan came to light in the EB IA settlement of Ashkelon-Afridar (Segal et al. 2004) which is situated not far from Site H and which may have had also contacts to Egypt. With the recent finds from Hujayrat al-Guzlan still other routes for the copper exchange crossing central Sinai have to be considered, and even a sea route around the Peninsula is not to be excluded. A number of ancient harbours along the western and eastern coast of the Gulf of Suez such as Ras Butran and Ain Soukhna, have been discovered (Figure 1). The locations of other overland routes close to Neolithic and/or Bronze Age sites and to oases suggest very old origins (Rothenberg 1979; Finkelstein 1995). The Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 “Darb el-Hajj”, connecting Aqaba and Suez via the ancient road between Ain Soukhna and Bin Gandali (Abdel-Motelib 2006), may be assumed as the direct passage from the sites in the Southern Wadi Arabah to the southern Delta region, and the “Way of Shur” between Ismailiya and Nizana is passing the great oasis in the northern third of Sinai (Rothenberg 1979; Anati 2001). It remains unknown whether copper was ever exchanged through Sinai, or whether the indigenous population was involved in such activities. Copper ore deposits exist in Sinai, but was mining, metal production and processing practised there? The meaning and importance of the Sinai copper in prehistoric times is still a problem, even with a number of copper smelting sites previously investigated (Beit Arieh 1980, 2003; Rothenberg 1979, 1987; Bachmann et al. unpubl.). At Maadi, there is no clear evidence for connections to the Sinai at all. Finds of manganese ore or tabular flint scrapers may originate from the Sinai but manganese ore occurs in the Eastern Desert also, ca. 100 km away from Maadi. Further are sources of tabular silex are known in the Negev and elsewhere (Schmidt 1984, 261ff; Seeher 1990, 148; cf. also Rosen 1983). In contrast, since the middle of the 4th millennium in Upper Egyptian Naqada tombs turquoise beads occur (cf. Hartung 2001, 270ff.) which must have been mined in the region of Serabit El-Khadim and Wadi Maghara in the Western Sinai. Despite this evidence, Egyptian presence is not attested before the late 4th millennium (Hartung 2001, 348ff.), neither in this region (Beit Arieh 1980, Fig. 7.14, 15; Bourriau 1996, Fig. 5.8) nor in the Wadi El-Regeita copper mining area in the South (Beit Arieh 1981, Fig. 9.2; 1986, Fig. 12. 20-22; 2003, 127). During the time before, one has to assume that the Naqadians got the raw materials by trade with bedouins. Later, since the Old Kingdom, Serabit and Wadi Maghara became the main target of pharaonic expeditions whilst the southern Sinai seems to have lost interest for the Egyptians completely. Ancient copper in the Egyptian Eastern Desert The Naqada Culture in Upper Egypt – but Maadi as well - may have obtained copper ore also through the exploitation of deposits in the Eastern Desert (e. g., Murray 1951; Lucas & Harris 1962, 205f.; GarenneMarot 1984). Malachite might have even been a byproduct of predynastic gold-prospecting in this region. The mineral often occurs in connection with auriferous quartz veines and its green colour may have served as a tracer to find such outcrops (e. g., Klemm & Klemm 1994, 194ff.). On the other hand, 7 8 like in Sinai, none of the mining regions yielded any evidence for connections to Maadi, and also here, the earliest Naqada pottery does not occur before the late 4th millennium. Therefore, for this region as well, it seems that throughout the 4th millennium raw materials were exploited by an indigenous nomadic population which further distributed the minerals, perhaps in exchange for agricultural products. Before powerful state-like structures had emerged at the end of the 4th millennium, the Naqada Culture obviously did not undertake its own enterprises to get direct access e. g. to copper ore from the region of Wadi Um Balad, Wadi Dara, Wadi el-Urf (cf. Tawab et al. 1990; Castel et al. 1992; Grimal 1993; 1994; Castel et al. 1998) and Wadi Abu Had (Bomann 1994, 30; 1995, 14-16) in the northern Eastern Desert. The newly discovered site of Wadi Semna I also belongs to this chronological horizon (see below). Geology and ore deposits in the Sinai Peninsula and the northern part of the Eastern Desert The Sinai Peninsula, a triangular landmass between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba is an extensive desert region. It is part of the Nubian Shield exposed in north-east Africa which in turn is part of the Pan-African belt. Its age is ~ 950 - 550 Ma (Abdel Rahman 1996). The Red Sea separates the Nubian Shield from its previously contiguous counterparts, the Sinai Peninsula, and the north-western part of the Arabian Peninsula, the Hijaz. The Nubian Shield consists mainly of metasedimentary rocks, migmatites, metavolcanic suites, serpentinites, gabbro-dioritetonalite complexes, granodiorite-granite batholiths and the Dokhan volcanic sequence (El-Ramly 1972; Bender 1985; Vail 1985; Kroner et al 1988; El-Gaby et al. 1990; Abdel-Rahman 1996). In the Sinai Peninsula, several geographic units can be distinguished: (1) The northern flat coastal strip consists of Pliocene to Quaternary sand and evaporates deposits of gypsum and salt along the Bardaweel lake, with some spectacular mountain areas of Jurassic to Eocene rocks at Gabal Maghara and Gabal Halal. (2) The El-Tih plateau which is made up of thick sedimentary rock-units of limestone and clastics from post-Carboniferous to Eocene, extending from the north to central Sinai and bounded to a major east-west running fault system which separates the Sinai into a northern and a southern part. (3) The mountain region of Southern Sinai, are formed of Precambrian magmatic and metamorphic rocks and Palaeozoic sedimentary facies of clastics and carbonates. These are bearing copper ores. Typically, the crystalline rocks as well some sedimentary units are cut by many hundreds of basaltic-andesitic to rhyolithic dike swarms of different ages. They are related to multi-phase rifting acitivities from the Precambrian to the Oligocene of the supra-regional rift system which divides the African and the Arabian plates. This part of Sinai is characterized by steep Wadis and a number of green oases, e. g., Feiran and St. Catherina. The mountains of St. Catherina contain copper bearing quartz-hematite veins. The Precambrian basement around the Gulf of Aqaba, near Dahab and Wadi Samra, is also cut by volcanic dikes which are also copper bearing. The Precambrian basement continues to the Hijaz (north-west Saudi Arabia) in the east. Copper mineralisation also occurs here in quartz veins, andesitic volcanic rocks, disseminated with auriferous deposits or within the low grade metamorphic schists. (4) The western flat coastal strip of Miocene to Quaternary which pervades the mountainous region of Southern Sinai, capping subsurface a Phanerozoic succession, contains several archaeological sites along the mouths of the wadis, i. e., Ba’Ba, Maghara, Feiran, Ras Sudr, Sidri and Nukhul. Geological set up of the copper deposits in the Precambrian rocks of Southern Sinai Hydrothermal copper bearing vein mineralisations occur in Precambrian rocks of Southern Sinai mainly in the area of the Wadis El-Regeita and Rimthi, northeast of the monastery of St. Catherina, and at Wadi Samra, near Dahab. The copper mineralisation at least at the surface is rather monotonous and consists of malachite, chrysocolla, and occasionally of copper sulphides such as chalcocite and chalcopyrite. With but one exception, copper ores analysed so far from these mineralisations are very pure (Bachmann et al., unpubl. data), i. e., they have very low concentrations of all those elements who would end up in the copper after smelting (arsenic, nickel, cobalt, bismuth, lead, silver, gold). Wadi Tar however is high in arsenic (Hauptmann et al. 1999). The mineralisations are bound to dikes and veins with a thickness of up to 5 m. In parts they are forming dike swarms intersecting all other crystalline rocks of the Precambrian basement. The largest copper bearing vein is located in Wadi El-Regeita. It is a three km long north-east-south-west running dike of rhyolitic-rhyodacitic composition, embedded in a variety of granitic rocks. As shown by numerous waste dumps heaped up all along the vein, and by some shafts, the vein was exploited in ancient times. The mineralisation was studied before for economic purposes (El-Metwally et al. 1992; Niazy & Abdel–Rahman 1995; Hassen 1997; Hashad et al. 1999). Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 9 Fig. 2: Geological map of the Um Bogma area, west central Sinai, Egypt, from the Wadi Ba’Ba in the west to Serabit ElKhadim in the east. After Kora et al. (1984) and Abdel-Motelib (1996). The area around the small scale mineralisation in Wadi Rimthi is dominated by low relief topography, in contrast to the surrounding high relief of the mountains of St. Catherina. The mineralisations again are bound to dikes in a two shear fault zone which cuts late orogenic alkali-granites and granodiorites (El Shazly 1964). This shear zone is heavily brecciated and shows fragments of granodioritic, basaltic, rhyolitic and andesitic rocks. Secondary copper ores occur in quartz veins. In association with the ores mentioned above, specularite, a fine grained, “soft” variety of hematite, and magnetite have to be mentioned. Another small scale copper mineralisation occurs in Wadi Samra near Dahab on (Figure 1). Also here, the copper mineralisation is bound to Precambrian layered andesitic-rhyolithic dikes. These are intervening banded iron metavolcanic-metasediment sequences. Layers of magnetite-bearing marble are also encountered within the later part of this sequence. The copper ores contain gold in the range of some ten parts per millions. Gold occurs possibly also in small quantities in crystalline rocks north of Eilat (Amar 1997), and near Abu Kusheibah (cf. Hauptmann 2007, 62ff.), Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 but there, as it is the case in Sinai, is no conclusive evidence that it was ever utilised in antiquity. Geological set up of the copper deposits of Serabit El-Khadim and of the Um Bogma area The more important mineralisations are located at the intake of the sedimentary rocks overlying the Precambrian rocks in the Um Bogma area in the west central part of the Sinai Penisula. The only known exception is one sample from Gabal Igma in the El-Tih-Plateau in the center of the Sinai, where Bachmann et al. (unpubl.) analysed secondary copper minerals, probably from the paleosol of the Um Bogma Formation. Stratiform to stratabound mineralisations of CambrianCarboniferous age occur in the area of Um Bogma, Bir Nasib and Serabit El-Khadim (Figure 2). The Um Bogma manganese-iron-copper deposit is situated in south-west Sinai, ca. 40 km east of the Gulf of Suez. The stratiform copper ores are of syngenetic origin affected by later hydrothermal activities also (Elgamy et al. 2000). The ores are composed exclusively of various secondary copper ores associated with chlorite, kaolinite and siltstone that were deposited in a 10 fluvio-deltaic environment (Abdel Motelib 1987; El Sharkawi et. al. 1990a, b). Stratabound carboniferous copper deposits are made up of copper-carbonates, -chlorides, -vanadates, -sulphates and -phosphates (turquoise at Wadi Maghara and Serabit El-Khadim). The ore lenses reach up to 200 m in diameter and are up to 6 m thick. The tabular-lenticular lenses are differentiated into Mn-rich cores and Fe-rich margins. They occur mainly within soft and friable shaly beds in the topsoil at the base of the Um Bogma Formation in association with uranium anomalies (1 ppm at Um Bogma and up to > 600 ppm at Um Hamd, some 4 km south-east of Um Bogma, Elgamy et al. 2000). Ore lenses associated with shaly beds were exploited at Um Bogma, mining area “45” (Wadi El-Shallal), Wadi Kharig and other localities. The Um Bogma Formation above the topsoil consists mainly of a sequence of cliff-forming, dark-grey and yellow-pink dolostones (“dolomite”). These show only minor copper mineralisations mainly along fault lines. They are deposited under a lagoonal-lateritic pedogenic environment (Abdel-Motelib 1996; El Aref & Abdel-Motelib 2001). This type of mineralisation can be correlated with the marine Cambrian copper ores of Faynan and Timna in the Wadi Arabah in Jordan and Israel. Geological set up of the copper deposits in the Precambrian rocks of the northern part of the Eastern Desert Two mega-sequences of rocks are building up the northern part of the Eastern Desert: 1) A pre-rift sequence of crystalline rocks of the late Precambrian basement of the Nubian Shield. This is unconformably overlain by sedimentary rocks of different ages, i. e., a sequence of early Paleozoic to Cretaceous rocks. 2) A syn- to post-rift sequence of Late Eocene to Quaternary sediments. Neoproterozoic volcanic rocks were identified in the basement complex in the central and southern part of the Eastern Desert. The oldest two groups are known as the Older and Younger Metavolcanic units (Stern 1981). They are made up of mafic to intermediate with subordinated felsic rocks. The Dokhan volcanics and the Hammamat group (ca. 610 – 560 Ma), however, are restricted mainly to the northern Eastern Desert. They include the major crustal components of the shield which are (from old to younger rocks): gabbro-diorite-tonalite, calc-alkaline Dokhan volcanic rocks, granodioritic-dike swarms, and A-type peralkaline granites. The Pan-African crustal block of Northeastern Egypt is characterized by calc-alkalic younger granites and coeval Dokhan volcanics and rocks of the Hammamat series. Here, hydrothermal copper veins occur. The later are un-metamorphosed and of intermediate to felsic composition. The area west of Hurghada is dominated by the Dokhan volcanics as well, and of older and younger granites. The Dokhan volcanics are represented by layered lava of different colour, texture (finegrained, porphyric and nonporphyric, jointed and fractured) and composition (andesites, rhyolites, dacites with pyroclastics). Copper mineralisations with malachite, chrysocolla and copper sulfides as predominant constituents - which are in many cases associated with gold (Klemm et al. 2001, 645) - are commonly associated with andesite and quartz veins. Many ancient archeometallurgical sites are encountered west of Gabal El-Zeit, e. g., Wadi El-Urf, and the nearby sites of Wadi Daram, Umm Balad, and Wadi Abu Had. The auriferous copper mineralisations of the Wadi Hamama, south of the Safaga-Qena road (Figure 1), occur in andesitic-rhyolitic rocks of the Dokhan volcanics. Here, the largest copper mine (see below at Semna) is a stratiform to stratabound horizon mainly with secondary copper ores within a green pelitic schist of the Banded Iron Formation (“BIF”) and Precambrian marble (Abdel-Motelib et al. in press). The copper ore forms continuous streaks of green secondary copper minerals and muddy fine grained cupriferous phyllite layers above the metamorphosed paleosol. Due to multiple remobilisations caused by lateritisation during the Precambrian copper was re-deposited in shear zones and scours. The ancient mine of Wadi Hamama was dug into the low grade metamorphic rocks. The copper deposits in the Semna area, east of the Wadi Hamama, occur in two different types. They form stratabound copper-bearing quartz veins which cut the low-grade metamorphosed Precambrian pelitic rocks. Second, stratiform mineralisations were observed usually intervening the low grade metamorphic muscovite quartz schists and red slates which represent a deltaic deposition of the Precambrian. The sedimentary cover of the northern Eastern Desert is represented by clastic and non-clastic sedimentary rocks of Early Paleozoic to Eocene age. The Oligocene igneous activity led to the formation of basaltic dikes and sills. These are highly weathered and overlain by Lower Miocene conglomerates west of Gebel ElZeit. Widely distributed Miocene rocks of the Eastern Desert are of special economic interest, since more than 60 % of the oil and gas production of Egypt are confined to them. Pliocene to recent sediments are represented by a section of clastics, thin evaporites and corals reefs that are widespread along the coast and in the cross cut of wadis that run perpendicular on the Red Sea coast The copper mineralisations in the area of the Wadi Dara and Gabal Umm Urf occur in the Precambrian Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 rocks of the Esh-Mellaha series which runs parallel to the Red Sea coast. The area is encompassed by Dokhan volcanics and alkali granites with metasediments of the Hammamat series. Copper bearing quartz veins are found in swarms (Castel & Pouit 1997, 105). Mineralised rhyolite or andesite dikes also occur. Sites visited in the Sinai Peninsula South-western Sinai Wadi Homr (Sarbot al Gamal) Coordinates: N29°06’00.2” – E 33°11’45.7”; altitude: 276 m The site in Wadi Homr is located 20 km west of Um Bogma in southern direction of the desert of El-Tih. It is a copper smelting site consisting of a western and an eastern hillside (Abdel-Motelib 2006). The Fig. 3: Wadi Homr. Schematic geological map of the Wadi Homr or Gabal Sarbot el Gamal area showing the different rock units and the location of the copper smelting sites and general trends of wind draft of the area. Wadi El Hommur = Wadi Homr; Copper settlement = smelting site. After Abdel-Motelib (2006). Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 hills are rising up to 40 m high above the nearby paved road. They are made up of intercalated shales and limestone of Miocene age (Figure 3). The hard limestone is partly dolomitic and siliceous and was used to manufacture stone tools. The site extends over an area of about 30 m and shows flat fields of copper slag (estimated amount of a few hundred kilograms) and other remains of metallurgical activities (Figure 4). Due to its position on the crest of hilltops the smelting site of Wadi Homr is exposed to strong blowing winds. In comparison with various localities in the Wadi Arabah it can be assumed that here copper ore was smelted in wind powered furnaces. Such types of furnaces are typical for the developed Early Bronze Age (Hauptmann 2007, 228ff.). The site of Wadi Homr is located in a greater distance to any ore deposits or mineralisations. Hence, ore must have been transported from distance to the smelting site, e. g., from the ore district of Um Bogma. The eastern hill is smaller and the surface is widely scattered by slag and weathered lithic flakes and tools. The scatter increases in north-western direction where 11 12 Fig. 4: Wadi Homr. The western hill shows flat slag fields on the top of small ridges. They are exposed to strong winds blowing from the north-west and north-east. Due to this unique position of the smelting site and the lack of tuyères, we suggest that copper was produced at the site in wind-powered furnaces. Foto: A Hauptmann, DBM. the slope shows a higher concentration of slag. In west-eastern direction four stone circles are arranged. Two circles were constructed in double partition and the other two are built as single circles. The outer diameters of the circles measure 2 - 2.5 m, the interior diameters about 0.8 m. The outer circles were built of unworked sandstone whereas the interior circles were made of limestones. No openings were observed. The function of the stone circles remains unclear. Whether these might be recent bedouin burials or possibly ancient constructions needs to be investigated. Archaeometallurgical finds Slag, furnace fragments, copper ore and prills, and hammer-stones were found. The size of the slag lumps varies between 0.5 and 15 cm on average. Crushed slag indicates mechanical extraction of copper prills entrapped in the slag after smelting. Other finds Weathered lithic flakes and tools; Pottery: Few Nile silt body sherds, wheel thrown, one fragment with cannelure decoration; all probably Roman or later. Dating/comments In comparison to various localities in the Wadi Arabah (Faynan and others) we suggest that this site is an Early Bronze Age smelting site where copper was produced in wind powered furnaces. Characteristically, the position of the furnaces was choosen in relation the intensity and direction of winds, and not primarily to the close vicinity of ore deposits. The site may have been re-visited in Roman or medieval times. Confluence of Wadi Nasib/Wadi Sih Coordinates: N 29°03’59.2” – E 33°23’14.0”; altitude: 406 m This copper smelting site is located close to the confluence of the Wadis Nasib and Sih on a flat quaternary terrace on the upper Paleozoic sandstone surface. It has an extension of ca. 50 x 50 m, and was partly destroyed by recent acitivities (Tallet 2006: 418). The site is covered by a few tons of slag (Figure 5). Slag lumps of a few cm to more than 10 cm were found. The thickness of the slag heaps is between 10 cm and 30 cm. The slag accumulations are built up of two strata which possibly result from a re-use of slag in later period(s). It is not certain that some stone settings are remains of smelting furnaces. Scattered slag was observed around the smelting site also. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 13 Fig. 5: Wadi Nasib - Wadi Sih, the copper smelting site. The flat slag heaps are marked by a darker colour in contrast to the reddish rocks and soil. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Fig. 6: Wadi Nasib - Wadi Sih. Multiple re-used tuyères from the smelting site. Tuyères of this design are a characteristic feature exclusively for the late 2nd millennium BC copper production of the Sinai Peninsula. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 14 Fig. 7: Bir Nasib I. At present the largest smelting site on the Sinai Peninsula is Bir Nasib. The amount of slag is estimated at 100,000 tons. The site is among the most important smelting sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. Most of the slag was produced during the Late Bronze Age / New Kingdom periods. The left part of the smelting side is severely destroyed by bulldozing. Archaeometallurgical finds The slag heaps consist of up to fist-sized slag fragments, often they were crushed, i.e., they were reworked. Very typical is a large number of multiply renewed and heavily slagged tuyères (Figure 6). They were made of several layers of (fire-resistant) clay (Al-Shorman 2009). The outer diameter of the tuyères measures between 8 and 10 cm, and the diameter of the wind-hole between 1.5 and 2.5 cm. They are comparable to those found at Bir Nasib I and suggest a dating from the New Kingdom (Rothenberg 1987). Dating/comments New Kingdom/ Late Bronze Age / Iron Age I. Specific dating material are the tuyères. 27 batteries of possible wind-powered furnaces were recently discovered by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale (IFAO) on top of the hills flanking the northern part of Wadi Nasib. It is suggested that the original number of furnaces was considerably higher. Surprisingly, only a little amount of slag has been observed. The beginning of these apparent metallurgical activities seems to go back to the Old Kingdom (Tallet 2007, 331; Castel et al. 2008, 67f.). Bir Nasib I Coordinates: N 29°02’20.6” – E 33°24’04.4”; altitude: 473 m The famous smelting site of Bir Nasib comprises a large area inside and around the modern oasis village Bir Nasib. It consists of a number of large copper slag heaps and a thick all-over coverage layer of slag with an extent of ca. 100 x 200 m (Figure 7). The largest slag heap liesbetween a steep mountain ridge in the east, and the settlement. On a rock face, ca. 300 m south-west of the slag heap, inscriptions of Ramesses II or Merneptah (19th Dynasty, New Kingdom) are found. The site is known already from early travellers (Rüppell 1829, 264f.) and since then it was repeatedly described by, e. g., Petrie 1906, 27; Lucas & Harris 1962, 203; Rothenberg 1970, 17, 25 (Site No. 350), 1973, 14, 1979, 164f.; Weisgerber 1976, 29ff.; Chartier-Raymond et al. 1994, 41f.; Tallet 2003, 462ff, Fig. 1-7, 2006, 417f.). Preliminary calculations of the slag amount to ca. 100,000 tons which could be equivalent to 5000 – 5400 tons of copper produced in total (Petrie 1906, 27; for further discussion see Lucas & Harris 1962, 206f.; Bachmann et al., unpubl., site 350; Rothenberg 1987, 5f.). Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 15 Fig. 8: Bir Nasib I. Many hundreds of multiple re-used tuyères were found at Bir Nasib. They are identical in shape and design with those found at the smelting site of Wadi Nasib / Wadi Sih. a) Preserved to a length of 10 cm; b) Top view of the same sample, note the diameter of the air hole. From: Al-Shorman (2009, 116). Unfortunately the originally accumulated slag heaps have not been preserved due to “ancient” re-working of the slag and modern constructions as well. The volume of the slag heaps itself, however, has not suffered from these activities. The largest heaps are located in the east of the oasis. They are quite “homogenous” in contrast with the heaps within the oasis which are mixed with ancient and recent pottery. The site is among the largest smelting sites in the Eastern Mediterranean and testifies to a supraregional center for copper production at least during the Late Bronze and Iron Age I. Previous soundings by Rothenberg (1987, 7) showed that the slag heaps consist of three layers. The upper layer is mixed with tuyères, while in the lowest level no tuyères were found. No further investigations were performed. According to Rothenberg (1987, 5), the ancient copper mines should be located in the slopes of the many low hills surrounding the slag valley, especially in the Wadi Umm Rinna. Bachmann et al. (unpublished) identified also turquoise among the copper ores from Bir Nasib I (but not found occurring in the solid rock). To underline the importance of Bir Nasib, Rothenberg (1987, 7) states, that “…The whole district should rather be considered the center of an ancient copper district instead of an individual copper mine…”. Archaeometallurgical finds such as slag, copper prills, hammer stones, anvil stones, copper ore were found. Worth mentioning are again the multiply re-newed tuyères used at Bir Nasib I which very frequently occur at the slag heaps, similar to the site of Wadi Nasib / Wadi Sih (Figure 8, see above). Only fragments of slagged ceramic furnace lining occur. Other finds Pottery: Some Nile silt body sherds, wheel thrown; not datable. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Dating/comments The large smelting activities testify to enormous copper production at least during the late New Kingdom (Late Bronze and Iron Age I). The lower layer of the main slag heap, in which no tuyères could be found, may indicate earlier activities. Like in the northern part of Wadi Nasib, 27 batteries of wind-powered furnaces were recently identified by investigations of the IFAO on top of the hills immediately to the west of Bir Nasib. They consist of furnaces, arranged side by side in a row of 11-18 m length. The rectangular furnaces are built of stones with two openings at the base of their northern walls facing the main wind direction. According to the pottery connected to these structures, the furnaces date to the Middle Kingdom. No slags are reported from this site (Tallet 2007, 329f.; Castel et al. 2008, 67f.). Bir Nasib II / “Rōd El-Aiar” Coordinates: N 29°02’36.1” – E 33°24’23.2”; altitude: 589 m Bir Nasib II is located in north-eastern direction of the large smelting site of Bir Nasib I, in close vicinity but high above the huge slag heaps. The site is situated on a small path (“Rōd el-Aiar”, meaning camel road) which leads from Bir Nasib to the area of Serabit elKhadim. A rock-art panel with depictions of horned animals is found immediately above the findspot, and a rock inscription of Amenemhet III (12th Dynasty, Middle Kingdom, Figure 9), flanked by proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, further 10 m up on the anticline of the hill. A copper mine and several small turquoise mines are reported to be located on top of the hill (Petrie 1906, 27 and Fig. 20; Porter/Moss 1951, 366; Gardiner et al. 1952, Pl. XIV; Gardiner et al. 1955, 30f., 16 Fig. 9: Bir Nasib II / “Rōd El-Aiar”. Inscription of Amenemhet III (Middle Kingdom, c. 1830 BC) next to the small trail on the pass (“Rōd el-Aiar”) which leads from Bir Nasib to the area of Serabit el-Khadim. Note the horned animals on the left (weathered) table. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Fig. 10: Bir Nasib II / “Rōd El-Aiar”. Vitrified and slagged furnace fragments made of sandstone from Bir Nasib “Rōd”. Note the glazed sandstone sherds which sometimes have distinctive greenish colour. These fragments are possibly parts of wind-powered furnaces. Along with these fragments nut- to fist-sized copper slag were found. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 76; Gerster 1961, 61; Gardiner 1962; Rothenberg 1970: 17, 25 (Site No. 351); 1973, 13f.; 1979, 164ff.; ChartierRaymond et al. 1994, 43; Tallet 2006, 418). On the site a few kilograms of slag, slagged furnace fragments (Figure 10) made up of sandstone-slabs and pieces of copper ore embedded in sandstone were found scattered in the upper part of the slope of the hill where also weak secondary copper mineralisations were visible in the sandstone matrix. Archaeometallurgical finds Scattered pieces of nut- to fist-sized slag, copper ore in sandstone, vitrified and slagged furnace fragments Other finds Pottery: Few Nile silt body sherds, including two rim fragments (of a bowl and of a large plate) dating to the Old or Middle Kingdom; few Nile silt body sherds, wheel thrown, probably Middle Kingdom or later; few body sherds of pinkish-yellowish local ware, not datable. Dating/comments The location of the site on top of a mountain, the conspicuous absence of any tuyères, and the shape and size of slag resembles the pattern of Early Bronze Age smelting sites in the Wadi Arabah (Hauptmann 2007, 228ff). On the other hand, based upon the rock inscription, the pottery evidence and the newly discovered furnaces on top of the opposite mountain range (see Bir Nasib I), a later date (Middle Kingdom?) has to be considered. The site is assumed to constitute the eroded remains of another smelting site with wind-powered furnaces located originally on top of the hill, like the batteries of furnaces east of Bir Nasib (Castel/Tallet/Fluzin 2008, 67). Wadi Kharig Coordinates: N 29°03’00.4’’ – E 33°20’56.3’’; altitude: 376 m This site is a small copper-manganese mine (Figure 11), located in a narrow wadi showing steep rock edges on both sides. The mine was opened in an outcrop of copper mineralisations at the lower Um Bogma Formation which forms a faulted block here. A shallow tunnel system was dug with several adits to follow the ore body and thin mineralisation layers. Fig. 11: Wadi Kharig. Some galleries of the ancient copper mine in the shaly-sandy part of the lower Um Bogma Formation cut by erosion. The soft and friable layer could easily be exploited in ancient times. A workmen’s settlement was located on top of the plateau above the mine. A stela of Sesostris I (12th dynasty) was still lying on the plateau immediately above the mine. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 17 18 Copper minerals are malachite and paratacamite (Bachmann et al. unpubl.). The remains of the ancient mining activities are located on the surrounding slopes: about 30 m in front of the adits of the mines small green copper ore pieces were found. Inside the mine the sandstones shows a few layers with pale greenish copper mineralisations, but their concentration is quite low. In general the lack of significant quantities of copper ore is striking. Ancient traces of mining tools can be seen within the mine, among them hammering traces from metal tools. On a narrow plateau above the mine, ca. 150 m to the south, stone built houses of an Old Kingdom workmen settlement are located with an inscription of Sahure (5th Dynasty) on the rock face behind the houses. Directly above the mine, a badly erroded stela of Sesostris I (12th Dynasty) was found (Rüppell 1829, 266; Gardiner/Peet/Černý 1955, 31; Rothenberg 1973, 14f.; Beit-Arieh 1977; Giveon 1977; Giveon 1978; Rothenberg 1979, 163f.). Slag heaps are reported from the wadi, ca. 500 m north of the mine, and remains of furnaces and fragments of tuyères are men- tioned as well (Chartier-Raymond et al. 1994, 41). A battery of possible wind-powered furnaces has been discovered by the investigations of the IFAO on the hilltop above the Old Kingdom settlement. To the west of the site, more mines and settlement remains dating to the Middle Kingdom were found (Tallet 2006, 417; 2007, 330; Castel/Tallet/Fluzin 2008, 67f.). Archaeometallurgical finds Around the mines ancient slag scatters and furnaces fragments were observed. It is possible that more material is hidden under the windblown sandy plain. Other finds Pottery sherds from the Old Kingdom Dating/comments Mining and metallurgical activities obviously took place from the Old Kindom (5th Dynasty / Early Bronze Age III) until the Middle Kingdom /Middle Bronze Age but may have well continued into later times as indicated by the finds of tuyères mentioned above. Fig. 12: Wadi Maghara. View of the ancient turquoise mines and waste dumps from the opposite hill where workmen’s habitation sites of the Old Kingdom are located. Exploitation activities date also to the New Kingdom. Most prehistoric remains are destroyed by mining activities in the 20th century. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 19 Fig. 13: Wadi Maghara. Relief of Pharao Sechemchet (2600-2595 BC) above the ancient turquoise mines. It survived destruction despite the use of explosives in mining activities during the 19th century. Unfortunately, the cartouche of the Pharao was stolen in the 1950’s. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Wadi Maghara Coordinates: N 28°53’50.4’’ - E 33°22’16.8’’; altitude: 296 m The turquoise mines at Wadi Maghara and the surrounding rock inscriptions are well known since the 19th century (e. g., Palmer 1872, 197; Weill 1904, 95ff.; Petrie 1906, 34ff.; Porter/Moss 1951, 339ff.; Gardiner/ Peet/Černý 1952, Pl. I-XV; Gardiner/Peet/Černý 1955, 22ff.; Giveon 1974, Weisgerber 1976, 31ff.; Rothenberg 1979, Garenne-Marot 1984, 98; Weisgerber 1991, Chartier-Raymond et al. 1994, 36f.). The mines are located along a ridge of a steep rocky slope, high above the Wadi Maghara itself (Figure 12). Turquoise was exploited from an only slightly dipping copper bearing sandstone strata. It occurs in small veins and pockets within this stratum. It is related to the Carboniferous lateritic and karst manganese ore deposit of the Um Bogma formation (Abdel-Motelib 1996; Sharkawi et. al. 1990 a, b; El Aref & Abdel-Motelib 2001). Due to mining activities at the beginning of the 20th century, the prehistoric traces are nearly completely destroyed. Waste dumps cover the slope below the mines and are heaped up in front of the Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 adits. Only few ancient hammering marks from metal tools are still visible today. Ancient tools were found by E. H. Palmer during his visit in 1869. He describes a large amount of lithic tools (hammer-stones?) and flint flakes, scattered around the mines, but he also mentions chisel marks from metal tools inside the mines. Vis-à-vis of the mines, on the top of a steep Tertiary/Quaternary gravel terrace, the settlement of the workmen of the Old Kingdom consisting of a large number of small stone-built huts is located. Bachmann et al. (unpubl.) describes finds of obsidian-like slag from Maghara. Archaeometallurgical finds No finds related to metallurgical activities could be found. Dating/comments According to the inscriptions around the mines (beginning with king Djoser, 3rd Dynasty), the main phase of exploitation was the Old Kingdom but seems to have continued on a smaller scale until the New Kingdom. Apart from two inscriptions of Sekhemkhet (3rd Dynasty, Figure 13), all other inscriptions are today either destroyed by the mining activities at the beginning of the 20th century, or have been transferred to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 20 Um Bogma, mining area “45” Coordinates: N 28°57’13.6’’ – E 33°19’03.9”; altitude: 315 m The ancient mines of the Um Bogma district are distributed in a wide geographic area. Although large parts of the mining district have already been destroyed by recent manganese mining activities, there are still a number of ancient copper mines preserved. The mining area “45” is one of them. It lies about 20 km east of the coast of the Gulf of Suez, between the ancient roads of the wadis Ba’Ba, Mokattab, and Firan (Abdel-Motelib & El-Derby 2006). The mine area occupies a triple block faulting junction of the Paleozoic against Precambrian basement rocks. The copper ore consists here of pronounced streaks and veinlets of malachite, pseudomalachite and atacamite (Figure 14) which are associated with the topsoil karstic sediments of the parent manganese bearing Um Bogma formation (Abdel-Motelib 1987,1996; El Sharkawi et al. 1990b, El Aref & Abdel-Motelib 2001). The topsoil horizon is also enriched by uraniferous anomalies (see Table 2). Its thickness varies between 1 - 5 m and forms also the traps of copper minerals which sometimes reach a thickness of 3 m alternating with clayey materials and iron oxides. The manganese- and ironrich copper-containing shales provided a natural selffluxing composition of ore for the ancient smelters. Dating/comments No secure dating material was available at the time of the expedition. According to macroscopic features the type of ore is similar to that found at the smelting site of Wadi Ba’Ba which mainly dates from the Early Bronze Age. Fig. 14: Um Bogma, mining area “45”. Copper bearing shaly-sandy part of the lower Um Bogma Formation, enriched with copper carbonates, phosphates and chlorides. As demonstrated in Fig. 10 (Wadi Kharig), this soft and friable layer was exploited in ancient times. The composition of silt and sand provided a natural “self-fluxing” material. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Mouth of Wadi Ba’Ba Coordinates: N 28°57’03.4’’ – E 33°15’14.9”; altitude: 122 m (lower level of the site) The mouth of the Wadi Ba’Ba into the El-Markha plain along the coastal area is cutting a north-south running steep hillside looking westwards to the sea. Here, a copper smelting site is located at the slope of a hill made up of Eocene limestone and dolomite (Petrie 1906, 18, Fig. 12; Lucas & Harris 1962, 207; Rothenberg 1970, 25 (Site 347); Chartier-Raymond et al. 1994, 34f.; Mumford & Parcak 2003, Fig. 2).The slag heap covers the western surface of the hill from the connection of the wadi to around 30 m up and along the bedding plane.The slag heap comprises perhaps ca. 1,000 tons (Figure 15).The site is faced by strong winds blowing from the nearby seaside. The deeply black coloured slag (ca. 5 -8 cm sized) is partly crushed. Many slag pieces were found to be rich in copper as indicated by remarkable encrustations of green secondary copper minerals and inclusions of copper droplets. No tuyères were found, but vitrified furnace fragments were frequently observed especially in the upper part of the slag heap which may point to the location of ancient furnaces on top of the hills. No copper mineralisations were found close to the smelting site. We therefore assume that copper ore was transported from the mining area “45” of Um Bogma, a distance of only a few kilometers. Archaeometallurgical finds Slag, vitrified furnace fragments Other finds Few pottery fragments of a local ware, not datable. Dating/comments There is no material available for a secure dating of the site. Due to the position of the slag heap on the two hills, however, a dating to the developed Early Bronze Age / Middle Bronze Age seems to be most likely, especially considering the short distance (ca. 7 kilometres) to the site of Ras Budran. Fig. 15: Wadi Ba’Ba. The smelting site is located at the mouth of Wadi Ba’Ba on the slope of the first mountain range which rises from the flat plain on the western side of the peninsula. The smelting site is exposed to very strong winds blowing from the sea. A dating to the developed Early Bronze Age / Middle Bronze Age is possible. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 21 Ras Budran Coordinates: N 28°59’03.6” - E 33°10’53.3”; altitude: 8m 22 The site is located in the northern part of the el Markha plain, in a distance of only 200 m from the seashore. It was discovered by Rothenberg (1970, 25f., site no. 345) in the 1960’s and is recently investigated by G. Mumford from the University of Toronto (Mumford 2006). The site is built on an alluvial fan deposits of Wadi Ba’Ba and along the sandy bay of Ras Budran. It is surrounded by sabkha deposits and aeolian sand hills. The beach is scattered with gravels of granite and various types of hard sedimentary rocks. The excavations revealed a roughly circular structure built of limestones, 44 m in diameter, with a 5-7 m wide wall which is preserved to a height of ca. 3.50 m. The interior of the structure constitutes a courtyard used as storage area, for household activities, for flint-knapping and for the processing of copper and turquoise. According to Mumford (2006) the construction seems to have been a fortified outpost which served as a garrison to secure and to support the Egyptian mining expeditions to Wadi Kharig and Wadi Maghara. From here, the raw materials may have been transported by ship to Ain Soukhna (see below) and then overland to Memphis, Egypt’s Old Kingdom capital. A connection to the smelting site at the mouth of Wadi Ba’ba, located some 7km to the west, seems to be quite possible. Archaeometallurgical finds Fragments of crucibles, crucible slag Dating/comment According to the pottery evidence, the construction of the fort and the main phase of its use was dated by Mumford (2006) to the late Old Kingdom (Early EBA IV/MBA I). The strategic importance of the northern el-Markha Plain – with suitable anchorages, easy access to the mining areas (by Wadi Ba’ba and Wadi Sidri) and a fresh water well at its northern edge is furthermore mirrored by a New Kingdom smelting and anchorage site situated to the north of Ras Butran which has been excavated by G. Mumford in 2002 (Albright 1948, 14f., fig. 2; Rothenberg 1970, 25 (Site no. 346); Mumford & Parcak 2003). Southern Sinai posits of Wadi El-Regeita. It is a wide wadi running from west to north and is bordered by large granitic rock formations. The ground is sandy. In the middle of the Wadi and on both sides, copper ore pieces were found. The copper ore might have been transported by the wadi from the west, where the copper ore deposit of Wadi El-Regeita is located. No other remains of metallurgical activities were found. Wadi El-Regeita Coordinates: N 28°37’29.7” – E 34°05’15.1”; altitude: 1364 m This is a site which comprises a long copper mineralized andesitic dike embedded in granitic rock suites which runs from Wadi El-Regeita in west-east direction with an extension of a few kilometres (Wilson & Palmer 1869, 121, noted a length of 3 km; Holland 1871, 540; Lucas & Harris 1962, 204). The dike is 2 – 2.5 m thick and is partially heavily mineralized by secondary oxidic copper minerals, copper sulfides and hematite / specularite). The Geological Survey of Israel (Brenner & Mart 1970) describes two Cu-mineralized dikes in this region, divided into a northern one of 4.5 km in length and a southern one of about 1.5 km in length. The average thickness of this dike is below 1 m. In addition, small mineralized fissures and veins occur in the vicinity (Beit-Arieh 2003, 201). Analyses of a geological sample revealed a copper content of 4 wt.%, but this average concentration is probably not relevant for the “ancients” who exploited selectively ore enriched and concentrated punctually in the dike. The copper dike of Wadi El-Regeita is one of the largest copper deposits of Southern Sinai, apart, of the ore deposit of Um Bogma. The dike was exploited almost all over its length, and it shows rows of “ancient” Pingen, up to a depth of 1 – 4 m, and a shaft of ca. 10 m, accompanied by waste dumps stringed like pearls on a necklace (Figure 16). Dating/comments The main phase of mining activities is probably contemporary with Early Bronze Age II sites such as Nabi Salah, Sheikh Muhsen and others, in which evidence for copper metallurgy was observed (Beit-Arieh 2003, 202). Chemical analyses of copper artefacts from these sites and from ore from the Wadi El-Regeita mine seem to confirm this connection for a large part of the investigated samples (Beit-Arieh 2003, 205-206). Wadi Zaghra Coordinates: N 28°38’17.7” – E 34°05’28.2”; altitude: 1231 m Wadi El-Nefoukh Wadi Zaghra is located in the crystalline basement in Southern Sinai, close to the region of the ore de- Coordinates: N 28°35’41.1’’ - E 34°02’00.0’’ – altitude: 1456 m Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 23 Fig. 16: Wadi El-Regeita. View of the “ancient” copper ore vein of El-Regeita at its western end. The mineralisation in the dike extends ca. 1000 m over the hills to the east. It was exploited almost along its total, and waste dumps run parallel to the so called “Pingen”. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Fig. 17: Wadi El-Nefoukh. Close to a group of striking granite boulders formed by “Wollsack”-weathering, and in close vicinity of a well, flat slag scatters of about ten tons occur (not shown in the picture). The plain is called “Blue Valley” due to some modern art blue rock paintings (arrow). Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 24 The slag heaps of Wadi El-Nefoukh are located in the so called Blue Valley, in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, some 10 km from the monastery of St. Catherina. The knick-name of this locality is due to the painting of some rock boulders by modern artists. The site (numbered as 1091 by Beit-Arieh 2003, 326) is in a distance of a few kilometres from the copper mineralisations in Wadi El-Regeita. It is located at the margin of the plain on top of a small gravel terrace of about 40 x 15 m, surrounded by huge granite boulders to the east and close to a well (Figure 17). Scatters of small-sized, crushed slag pieces (cm- to mm-sized) and pieces of copper ore were found on the terrace. Due to a macroscopic evaluation the ore is indeed compatible with that from Wadi El-Regeita. The amount of slag is about 1 ton, which indicates a very small scale copper production. Archaeometallurgical finds Slag, copper pieces, ore Dating/comment The wind exposed location of the smelting site, and the assemblage of finds (crushed slag, ore, furnace fragments, and namely the absence of any tuyères or clay tubes) point to a typical wind-powered furnace situation. This type of furnace seems to be characteristic for the later EBA. No pottery was found. Wadi Ahmar Coordinates: N 28°37’26.4’’ - E 34°03’28.4’’; altitude: 1308 m The site was numbered no. 1039 previously by Beit Arieh (2003, 297). It is located along the alluvial fan of Wadi Ahmar, on a slight slope. The extension of the place measures about 40 x 160 m (Figure 18). The site shows different sized stone settings of oval or irregular shape all around. In the lower third of the elongated site a high concentration Fig. 18: Wadi Ahmar, site 1039. General view of the sites 1038 (left, three persons) and 1039 (right, one person) which are separated by a small wadi draining into the Wadi Ahmar. Site 1039 is located on the slope at the background beyond the wadi. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 of quartz pieces and chips, scattered between the ruins, was noticed. They originate from a copper bearing quartz dike nearby. Few pottery sherds and cm-sized crushed slag were found. Copper ore could not be found within the architectural units, but the rocks which enclose the site to the West were densely scattered with small copper ore pieces. Wadi Ahmar site 1039 is a copper producing site, but there is little evidence for large scale copper smelting. Dating/comments The site is dated by Beit-Arieh (2003, 298) to the Early Bronze Age II, but considering the tuyères found at the nearby site 1038 also a later date seems possible. On the eastern flank of the site a 4 m deep wadi rift divides the sites 1039 and 1038 (Beit-Arieh 2003, 298). On both slopes of the wadi architectural remains are found. The site was numbered no. 1038 previously by BeitArieh (2003, 297). It joins eastwards to site 1039 and is separated from it by a small wadi rift. The stone structures at site 1038 are well preserved, in parts they are covered by small boulders and eroded walls. Round and round cornered buildings characterize the site, in which all in all more than 15 well preserved stone houses can be observed (Figure 19). The amount of (crushed) slag was estimated by Bachmann et al. (unpubl.) to be ca. 75 kg. Perhaps 10 kg Archaeometallurgical finds Slag, copper ore, tuyères Other finds Two Egyptian marl clay body sherds, not datable 25 Wadi Ahmar Coordinates: N 28°37’26.64” – E 34°3’27.61”; altitude 1309 m Fig. 19: Wadi Ahmar, site 1038. View on site 1038 with slight slag accumulations within and outside architectural remains on a gravel terrace (grey). Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 a b 26 Fig. 20a, b: Wadi Ahmar, site 1039. Slagged tuyères made of clay from a copper (s)melting process (a: slagged outside of a tuyère, b: inside, showing a diameter of the hole with ca. 1 cm). They are of the same making as those found at Late to Middle Bronze Age Faynan and Timna. Sample collected by Prof. Dr. H.G. Bachmann 1978 from site 717A which most probably is identical with Beit-Arieh’s site 1039. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. or so of metal could have been produced. Tiny pieces of copper ore can be found scattered on the granitic rocks which close the site northwards. Dozens of tuyères with finger-sized wind holes were found on the site (Figure 20). These are comparable to those from the Late to Middle Bronze Age tuyères found at Faynan and Timna (Hauptmann 2007; Rothenberg 1990). Due to the shape, diameter and size these objects indicate a later date than assumed by Beit-Arieh (2003, 301). Wadi Ahmar site 1038 is a copper producing site also, but there is also no evidence for ample copper smelting Archaeometallurgical finds Tuyères, crushed slag, few pieces of copper ore Dating/comments Especially the type of tuyères, in comparison with the two major copper districts at Faynan and Timna, indicate a dating into the Late EBA / MBA. The pottery described by Beit-Arieh (2003, 297, „…body sherds of holemouth jars similar in composition to the EBA II pottery, sherds of red clay“) points to the EBA II. due to the excavations of Currelly in 1906 (Currelly in Petrie 1906, 239f.) or Rothenberg in 1972 (1979, 138). We did not find slag in such an amount as described by previous authors, but a few kilograms of small pieces of crushed slag, and pieces of mineralized quartz probably from the nearby Wadi El-Regeita vein are nevertheless proof for a limited copper production at the site. The stone structures of different size and oval or round cornered shapes are well preserved and their diameters measure between 1 - 4 m. Furnaces or crucible fragments were not found. Archaeometallurgical finds Slag, copper ore form nearby Wadi El-Regeita Other finds flint borers Dating/comments Rothenberg dated the copper production installations which he had excavated to the Early Bronze Age II, flint implements found by Currelly date from the PrePottery Neolithic B date (Beit-Arieh 2003, 201). Wadi Rimthi Watiya Pass Coordinates: N 28°37’41.80” – E 34°4’4.87”; altitude: 1214 m Coordinates: N 28°41’53.63’’ – E 33°58’48.52”; altitude: 1272 m The site was numbered before as 1035 by Beit-Arieh (2003, 295-296). It is located on a steep rocky edge which build up the northern border of the Wadi Rimthi. Several waste dumps and accumulations of excavated soil between the remains of stone structures are visible at the surface of the site; they are In his report Beith-Arieh (2003, 65ff.) numbered the site 1042. The Early Bronze Age II settlement is located directly westwards of the Watiya pass, about 100 m on the northern bank besides the asphalt road. It lies on a flat gravel terrace formed by the detritus of the steeply arising granite mountains. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 27 Fig. 21: Watiya Pass. About 50 m above an Early Bronze Age II settlement, located next to the paved road, a small copper smelting site was found. Vitrified furnace fragments and slag were found on the steep slope facing strong winds from the west. Due to this specific position and the absence of any finds of tuyères, it is suggested that copper was produced here in wind-powered furnaces. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Fig. 22: Watiya Pass. Granite hammer stones found at the gravel slope between the smelting site and the Early Bronze Age II settlement below. Foto: K. Pfeiffer, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 28 Beit-Arieh (2003, 65ff.) excavated the settlement at the bottom of the mountains. He reports very little copper slag and ore, and two small copper implements. From the archaeometallurgical point of view, the smelting site located nearby, which obviously was not discovered before, is of greater interest for us. It is located ca. 50 m above the settlement in a broad incision in the granitic rock caused by weathering of a copper-mineralized andesitic dike (Figure 21). Copper ore, slag, heavily vitrified furnace fragments and hammer stones (Figure 22) were found on top of the dike’s exposure and on its steep slopes. Not one single clay tuyère was found. The site is exposed to very strong winds from the west. Therefore it can be suggested that the smelting of copper was performed in wind powered furnaces. Unfortunately, the position of the furnaces could not be found. As the amount of slag did not exceed the amount of a few kilograms, metal probably was produced only on a small scale for the settlers own needs. It is worth mentioning, however, that Watiya is one of the few Early Bronze Age II sites that offer both artefacts and production of copper. Archaeometallurgical finds Hammer stones, slag, ore, and vitrified furnace fragments Dating/comments According to his excavation results, the settlement site was dated by Beit-Arieh to Early Bronze Age II, and the smelting site above the settlement is probably of the same date. Sites visited in the northern and central Eastern Desert of Egypt Northern Eastern Desert Ain Soukhna Coordinates: N 29°35’12.48’’ - E 32°20’07.09’’ - altitude 24 m The site of Ain Soukhna is located on the western seashore of the Red Sea, only a few kilometres south Fig. 23: Gabal Dara, Eastern Desert. Overview of a working/smelting site in a Wadi nearby Gabal Dara with several building remains. Next to the buildings two terraces were built. One contains crushed copper slag and the other crushed copper ore. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Fig. 24: Pottery from different sites in the Eastern Desert, scale 1:4 (a, b: Gebel Dara; c,d: Wadi Hammama ‘Ain; e-i: Semna I; j-l: Semna II). Drawing by R. Hartmann, DAI. of Suez. In 1999 hieroglyphic inscriptions were discovered at a rock face not far from the sea shore, and since 2001, the site is intensively investigated by the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, Cairo (Abd el-Razik et al. 2002; Mathieu 2003: 595ff.; 2004: 690ff.; Defernez 2004, 59ff.; Abd el-Razik et al. 2004; 2006; 2007; 2007a; Abd el-Razik et al. 2007; Castel et al. 2008, 64f., 70f.). Ain Soukhna turned out to be a multifunctional center involved in maritime enterprises along the Red Sea coast as well as in metallurgical activities. The site covers more than one hectar and Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 comprises not only a settlement with several workshops but also galleries, built ca. 20 m into the rock of the hill slope. First thought to have been ancient mines for local copper ore, the excavations revealed that they were intentionally built as magazines to store dismantled ships and other equipment. Additionally, ca. 50 wind-powered furnaces and other metallurgical installations indicate considerable smelting and melting activities at the site. As to the origin of the copper ore, it is assumed by the excavators to be come from the Sinai Peninsula. 29 30 Dating/comments According to the inscriptions and the pottery evidence from the excavations, Ain Soukhna seems to have been the starting point for pharaonic expeditions to the copper and turquoise mines of the Sinai Peninsula mainly during the Old and the Midlde Kingdom. The metallurgical activities attested so far, date to a rather short span of time during the Middle Kingdom. Some finds of stone vessel fragments and one of the radiocarbon dates yielded from an excavated fire place may indicate earlier (late Predynastic/Early Dynastic) activities at the site (personal communication, G. Castel). Gebel Dara Coordinates: N 27°55’47.0’’ - E 33°00’21.9’’ - altitude: 432 m The site is located in the mining district of Wadi Dara - Umm Balad - Wadi el-Urf (Tawab et al. 1990, 359ff; Castel & Mathieu 1992; Grimal 1993; 1994), some 10 kilometres to the east of the sites in Wadi Dara, at the end of a small wadi cutting from the east into the Gebel Dara mountain ridge. The site comprises architectural and archaeometallurgical features (Figure 23). Among the stone houses, some buildings are preserved with a height of 1.20 m. They are rectangular and use the natural rocks being part of the construction. The walls are made of medium sized stones. Scattered grinding stones of different shape can be found in the site. Two terraced places of about 4 x 5 m can be observed, one of them is enclosed by a row of stones. On this terrace only crushed slag was found, densely covered and with an amount of about 1 ton; whereas on the other terrace exclusively copper ore pieces were found. These features represent probably two working areas in the centre of a dwelling place. Archaeometallurgical finds Copper ore, slag, and grinding stones Other finds Rather large amount of scattered sherds, including coarse straw tempered Nile clay fragments of large pithoi (not datable), two pieces of fine red polished late Roman “Aswan ware” (Figure 24 a) and several marl clay fragments, amongst them a rim of a bottle of Ptolemaic/Roman date (Figure 24 b). Dating/comment The pottery indicates the use of the site from early Roman (or even Ptolemaic) until late Roman time. Neither slag nor any of the grinding stones are datable. Central Eastern Desert The following sites are situated south of the Qena-Safaga asphalt road in the northern part of the central Eastern Desert. This region was not only important as one of the connections between the Nile valley and the Red Sea but was also quite intensively exploited during the Ptolemaic (gold mining) and Roman period (gold mining, quarrying). Gold deposits occur, e. g., at Abu Marawat, Semna, Gebel Semna, Gidami, and in the Wadi Hamama (Botros 2002). Several way stations and hydreumata (fortified wells) in this area witness the effort to secure these activities (e.g. Barron & Hume 1902, 59, 86, 221, 265 (Wadi Semna); Murray 1925, 146, pl. XI; Meredith 1952, fig. 1, 105ff.; Klemm & Klemm 1993, 408ff.; 1994, 206ff; Sidebotham 1996, Fig. 1; 189f.; Sidebotham et al. 2001). Wadi Abu Greida Coordinates: N 26°21’27.9’’ – E 33°17’18.5’’ – altitude: 372 m The site (possibly mentioned by Meredith 1952, 106 and Klemm & Klemm 1994, 220, No. 29 or 30) is located along the north-east – south-west running Wadi Abu Greida, on an elevated Quaternary alluvial plain. To the south, Paleozoic sandstone hills rise over the rocks of the Precambrian basement. The alluvial sediments contain Precambrian volcanic rock gravels such as rhyolites and red and green coloured porphyric rocks. In the sandstone formation, a tableau with animal petroglyphs is found. The site is characterised by some stone-built architectural remains and several waste dumps with volumes of 10 to 20 m3 each. They consist of fine grained sandy material very rich in hematite (“specularite”). It is not certain if this material was derived from mineralisations in the Banded Iron Formations (“BIF”) only a few kilometers east of Abu Greida, or if gold was extracted (Botros 2002, 147). Distributed over the site are dozens of grinding and anvil stones (Figure 25) mostly made from the gravels of the alluvial plain. Grooves at the surface clearly indicate that the waste dumps result from a very careful and systematic beneficiation of material by grinding and hammering. Approximately 1 ton of slag from iron processing is scattered over the site and accumulated on a small heap. Although iron smelting is mentioned in the literature (e.g. Murray 1925, 146; Meredith 1952, 106), most probably the slag does not represent any iron smelting process, but rather point to smithing activities. Archaeometallurgical finds Iron processing slag, anvil stones, hammer stones Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 31 Fig. 25: Wadi Abu Greida, Eastern Desert. One of the dozens of anvil stones found at the site. Note the typical porphyric texture of the rhyolithic rock. The anvils stones are identical to those found by Klemm & Klemm (1994) at gold processing sites in the Eastern Desert. We can not exlude the possibility that hematite rich gold bearing ore was processed here as well. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Fig. 26: Wadi Hamama, Eastern Desert. Ptolemaic mining site (copper, gold?) showing remains of mining activities on the slope. In the foreground are traces of a rectangular stone building. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Other finds Nile silt and marl clay fragments, often covered by a white wash, including some body sherds and a handle of a Roman amphora. 32 Dating/comments The site belongs obviously to the network of sites supporting Roman gold mining activities in the region. 1 - 1.5 m. Their interior is divided into several rooms. Small green copper mineralisations in limonite are visible in rhyolithic dikes and are associated with Precambrian mudstone schist where the host rock is heavily altered. Archaeometallurgical finds Copper ore, grinding stones, and slag Coordinates: N 26°20’44.2’’ - E 33°21’13.7’’ - altitude: 497m Other finds Around the houses scattered sherds of Ptolemaic date were found, including the rim fragments of an amphora made of Nile silt (Figure 24 c) and of a red polished bowl made of marl clay (Figure 24 d). The site (possibly mentioned by Klemm & Klemm 1994, 220, No. 29 or 30) is situated at the upper course of a small wadi, ca. 5 km east of the site of Abu Greida. It may have secured the water supply in this barren region. Two rectangular stone buildings are found immediately beside a mine (Figure 26). The walls of the houses are preserved to a hight of ca. Dating/comments The small mining site seems to have been in use exclusively during the Ptolemaic period. Due to the association of copper with gold the latter was probably exploited from the mineralisations as well. Semna and Gebel Semna are described as gold mines by Botros et al. (2002, 138). Wadi Hamama Fig. 27: Semna I, Eastern Desert. Small late Predynastic / Early 1st Dynastic (EBAI / EBAII) mines in a tributary of Wadi Semna probably for extracting copper ore. Since neither slag nor metallurgical installations were observed the copper ore might have been exploited solely for its use as a pigment. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Wadi Semna I Coordinates: N 26°28’03.6’’ - E 33°36’49.5’’ – altitude: 538 m The mining area of Semna I consists of ca. 20 individual mines or tailings, respectively, on both sides of a small tributary to Wadi Semna where copper bearing hydrothermal quartz veins embedded in Precambrian meta-sedimentary rocks were exploited (Figure 27). They may reach an extent of up to 15 x 20 m each. The veins show limonite and, subordinated, manganese hydroxides. The mineralisations are intruding into the host rock. Secondary green copper minerals such as malachite and chrysocolla are forming striking wallpapers and small, mm- to cm-sized geoids. Of special interest are layers of very fine to fine grained argillaceous metamorphic rocks made up of clays and silt sized quartz and iron oxides. Due to iron and organic contents as well as the various types of the original clay show reddish-green and greyish-black colours. During our short visit, no furnaces or any other metallurgical installations, and no slag were observed. If at all, furnaces may be located on top of the neighbouring hills or, alternatively, it was just copper ore that was exploited here as a pigment rather than for metal production. At the bottom of the wadi, a square stone structure is partly visible, measuring ca. 5 x 5 m. Inside and around the structure some scattered pottery fragments and large amounts of partly worked chips of grey metamorphic shist were found. The debris may point to the additional production of cosmetic palettes, vessels or bracelets, as they are common in predynastic and early dynastic Egyptian tombs, at the site. Archaeometallurgical finds No finds related to metallurgy, but copper ore, and hammer stones Other finds The pottery found scattered on the surface is all handmade and can be classified into four groups with only a limited range of shapes: Fig. 28: Semna II, Eastern Desert. Remains of a small workmen settlement from the Old Kingdom (3rd / 4th Dynasty) located on the foot of a hill slope with copper mines. Foto: U. Hartung, DAI. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 33 34 1. Medium sand and straw tempered alluvial Nile clay with mica inclusions, wet finished surface: fragment of a shallow bowl with conical walls and rectangular smoothed rim (Figure 24 e) and a fragment of a deep bowl with convex walls (Figure 24 f). 2. Fine marl clay, red slipped and polished on the inner and outer surface: all fragments belong to bowls, e.g. to a thin-walled, streak polished bowl typical of the early 1st Dynasty (Figure 24 g). 3. Medium to coarse marl clay, smoothed and scraped surface: all fragments belong to high ovoid jars with broad shoulders and a distinct neck (Figure 24 h). 4. Probably mixed fine alluvial/fine marl clay with few limestone particles, sand and mica inclusions, burnished surface: quite rare, one fragment belongs to a globular jar with lentil-shaped base (Figure 24 i). Dating/comment According to the pottery, the activities on the site seem to date from the late Predynastic until the early 1st Dynasty. This evidence corresponds to the beginning of copper mining and smelting in the Wadi Dara region in the northern Eastern Desert. According to macroscopic features the copper ore of this outcrop shows strong similarities to malachite finds from Predynastic tombs at Abydos. Semna II Coordinates: N 26°27’58.3’’ - E 33°37’27.0’’ – altitude: 505 m Another cluster of small mines is located in a distance of about 2 km east of Semna I on the slopes above the bottom of another wadi. One ore vein of 1 – 2 m width was found to be mined in ancient times. It is filled with debris at a depth of about 2 m. The copper mineralisation and geological set up is identical to Semna I. At the foot of the slope several stone structures are visible: Beside a rectangular installation preserved to a height of about 30 cm, an ensemble of round structures is found (Figure 28). The construction is rather well preserved and consists of several roughly Fig. 29: Semna III, Eastern Desert. View to the ancient mines on the slope of a mountain ridge. Quartz veins of ca. 500 m length were probably exploited for copper ore, possibly also for gold. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 circular units of 2 – 4 m in diameter. A connection between the architectural remains and the mines seems to be obvious – they may well have been the habitations of a group of workmen. 35 Archaeometallurgical finds Copper ore and hammer stones Other finds The majority of pottery was found in and around the stone built structures, some additional pieces on the slopes immediately below the mines. The assemblage consists mainly of different kinds of red polished wares, with only a few additional coarse straw tempered Nile silt sherds with rough surface. Among the red polished wares three major groups of fabrics can be distinguished: 1. Fine alluvial clay with fine sand and mica inclusions. 2. Fine marl clay. 3. Medium straw tempered alluvial clay. The first two fabrics include mostly different kinds of the very hard and high-quality “Meydum ware” (Figure 24 j), but also fragments of ovoid storage jars with broad shoulder and of slim bottles with narrow neck (Figure 24 k). The third group is represented only by a few pieces restricted to vessels of closed shape with convex wall and flaring rim which have been most probably used as cooking pots (Figure 24 l). All the assemblage can be dated to the late 3rd and the 4th Dynasties. Dating/comments The Old Kingdom date of Semna II leads to the assumption that the site may have been the successor of the late Predynastic/Early Dynastic site Semna I. Altogether, the mining region of Semna may have covered an area measuring several square kilometers. As far as we know, these sites are the first evidence for early copper ore mining in the area which was hitherto known mainly from its gabbro quarry and other installations of Roman times (Klemm/ Klemm 1993, 408ff.; Sidebotham et al. 2001). The chronological evidence from Semna I and II seems to reflect the situation in the Wadi Dara region, where late Predynastic/Early Dynastic mining activities were continued also especially during the 4th Dynasty (cf. Köhler 1998). In contrast to Wadi Dara, furnaces or any other metallurgical installations for the processing of copper ore are missing at Semna I and II. This may be due to the fact that they were not yet found, or that they did not exist because only the exploitation of green copper minerals was the intention of these mining activities, and not the production of metal. Furthermore, we should not exclude the possibility that the small mines were dug only for prospection purposes and were soon abandoned because only poor ore was found. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Fig. 30: Semna III, Eastern Desert. One single U-shaped smelting furnace was built on top of a small hillock opposite to the mines. The front part of the furnace is totally removed; the backside shows some ceramic furnace lining. Only a few kilograms of slag were produced which are now broken to fist-sized pieces. Obviously, copper production was not of any major importance here. The dating of these metallurgical acivities is not clear. Foto: A. Hauptmann, DBM. Wadi Semna III Coordinates: N 26°27’22’’ - E 33°37’46’’ – altitude: 472m Some 2 kilometres south-east of Semna II the mining area of Semna III is located. No further subdivision was made. At Semna III steep dipping, copper bearing quartz veins with a length of ca. 500 m were exploited in ancient times. This vein is located ca. 50 m above the wadi bottom on the eastern slope of a steep mountain ridge. Mining activities are visible from the wadi by numerous tailings (Figure 29). Opposite to the mountain ridge, on top of a small isolated hillock, some ten kilograms of crushed black copper slag were found, next to a single U-shaped smelting furnace with a height of ca. 30 cm (Figure 30). The stone settings of the furnace were covered inside by remains of a vitrified ceramic layer. Defi- nitely, the furnace was fired, but no indications of a metallurgical operation were recognizable. 36 Archaeometallurgical finds Copper smelting slag, remains of a smelting furnace Other finds Pottery: Few marl clay body sherds, not datable Dating/comments Semna III is the only site in the district which bears remains of copper metallurgy. Due to its position on top of a hillock, the smelting furnace could have been operated as a wind-powered furnace. This installation might have been in use during the Old Kingdom. Analytical investigation of archaeometallurgical finds Copper and manganese ores, copper slag and metal artefacts as compiled in Table 2 were delivered to the laboratories of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum. These samples were analysed for their chemical composition (main and trace elements) and for their lead isotope ratios. In addition to these samples, 6 copper ores and 2 metal artefacts from the settlement of Maadi (ET-5/18) were analysed for their lead isotope ratios. Previous lead isotope analyses of 5 copper objects from Maadi were performed by Hauptmann et al. 2012. We also analysed 4 copper ores and two small copper artifacts (ET-65/1-6) found at several road-stations along the “Way of Horus” in Northern Sinai, which is the continuation of the route that starts at Wadi Ghazzeh in the eastern part. Additionally, several copper objects from Predynastic and Early Dynastic Upper Egypt have been sampled in different museums for comparison. Chemical analyses and mineralogical phase analyses by microscopy and by X-ray diffraction were performed at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, lead isotope measurements at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University, Muenster, and at the Institute of Geoscience, Dept. of Mineralogy, J.W. Goethe University of Frankfurt/Main using a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (VG Sector 54, see Bode 2008) and a Multicollector-ICP-Mass Spectrometer (Neptune, Thermo Scientific) at Frankfurt. Part of the samples were already published in the PhD-thesis of one of the authors (Pfeiffer 2009b). These and all other data used in this part of the study are mentioned in the tables. The analyses were performed to find out (1) which sources were exploited to produce copper objects found in the Sinai, at Maadi and in the Eastern Desert, and (2) to characterise the composition of the locally produced metal. Lead isotope analyses are of major interest. Newly measured and previously analysed samples from Hujayrat Al-Ghuzlan (unpublished data Bochum), Tell Al-Magass (Hauptmann et al. 2009), Faynan, and Timna (Hauptmann 2007), and finally from the Sinai (Hauptmann et al. 1999) and from the Beit-Arieh-collection (Pfeiffer 2009b) were included for comparison with our results from the expeditions in 2006 and 2008. The currently available set of data comprises 95 analyses. Chemical composition Ores All copper ores we analysed from the Sinai Peninsula and from the Eastern Desert show very low concentrations in sulphur. They are typical supergene secondary ores derived from the weathering of simple composed sulphidic copper ores such as chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite, covellite. Mineralogically the ores consist of paratacamite (Cu2(OH)3Cl), chrysocolla (CuSiO 3·2H 2O), malachite (Cu 2[(OH) 2/CO 3]), pseudo-malachite (Cu5[(OH)2/PO4]2) and turquoise (CuAl6((OH)2/PO4)4 4H2O). Petrographic features of copper (manganese) ores can be used to distinguish the three sedimentary ore deposits of Um Bogma, Faynan, and Timna. Differentiation solely based upon geochemical data and lead isotope ratios is rather difficult. Some of the characteristic textural features are shown in Figure 31. All the ores analysed are very low in the elements (Table 3) which would remain in the (final) artefact after a smelting or re-melting operation. These are, e. g., arsenic, antimony, bismuth, lead, cobalt and nickel which are all below 1 wt.%. One exception is a sample of ore from Wadi El-Regeita (ET-58/1) with nearly 1 wt.% of lead. Typically, zinc may reach the lower percentage level in samples from localities such as the mining area “45” and Serabit el-Khadem. Low minor and trace element levels characterise these ores from ore formations containing complex Cu-As-Ni-Co-Agore compositions such as fahlores (silver-containing Cu-As,Sb-sulfides), enargite (Cu3AsS4), or other rich complex copper sulfides. We therefore exclude a provenance from Sinai and the Eastern Desert for artefacts such as those found at the Chalcolithic Nahal Mishmar hoard west of the Dead Sea (Tadmor et al. 1995), or from Givat Ha-Oranim, north-east of the Ben-Gurion-Airportwest (Namdat et al. 2004). These artefacts are high both in arsenic and antimony, and partly high in nickel and were probably manufactured using fahlore. On the other hand, the low minor and trace element concentrations make it futile to distinguish geochemically between raw sources in Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Tab. 2: List of ores, slags and metal objects from the Sinai Peninsula and from the Eastern Desert included for measurements of the chemical composition and of the lead isotope ratios. * Surface collected samples; ** Ore from archaeological contexts; *** Bedrock ore. Note that the sample numbers of the copper ores from Wadi El-Regeita (ET-5/1 and 5/2) come from an outdated system (Hauptmann et al. 1999). These samples are different from those found at Maadi. Region Locality Southern Sinai Sheikh Muhsen Type Sample No. Literature Cu-ore** ET-1/3 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-1/4 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-lump ET-1/5 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-1/6 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-1/7 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-1/8 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore** ET-1/9a Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore** ET-1/10a Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-metal 145 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-metal 6678 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Sheikh Awad Cu-metal 225 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Wadi Samra Cu-ore** ET-4/1 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-4/2 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-6/1 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-6/2 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** ET-10/1 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** ET-10/2 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** Segal3 Segal et al. 2004 Cu-ore*** Segal2 Segal et al. 2004 Cu-ore*** Segal1 Segal et al. 2004 unknown Cu-ore ET-11/1 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Wadi Nasib / Wadi Sih smelting slag ET-52/1 this study Um Bogma, Cu-ore*** ET-12/1 Pfeiffer 2009b (mining area"45") Cu-ore *** ET-55/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore*** ET-/552 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise *** ET-55/3a Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise *** ET-55/3b Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Rimti Wadi Tar Cu-ore*** ET-55/4 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Homr smelting slag ET-50/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Bir Nasib 1 smelting slag ET-51/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Bir Nasib "Rod" smelting slag ET-53/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Kharig Cu-ore * ET-54/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Maghara turquoise *** ET-56/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Ba'Ba smelting slag ET-57/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi El-Regeita Cu-ore*** ET-5/1 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** ET-5/2 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore *** ET-58/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore *** ET-58/2 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1a Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1b Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1c Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-59/2 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-lump ET-59/3 Pfeiffer 2009b slag + matte ET-63/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore ** ET-63/2 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-63/3 Pfeiffer 2009b slag + Cu ET-63/4 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-metal ET-63/5 Pfeiffer 2009b Serabit el-Khadim Nabi Salah Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 37 Tab. 2: Continuation. Region 38 Locality Type Sample No. Literature smelting slag ET-64/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore** ET-64/2 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-64/2a Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-64/2b Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore ** ET-64/3 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore ** ET-64/5 this study Wadi Nefoukh smelting slag ET-72/1 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Ahmar tuyère fragment ET-73/1a Pfeiffer 2009b tuyère fragment ET-73/1b Pfeiffer 2009b Site B-10 Cu-ore ** ET-65/2 this study Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/1 this study Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/3 this study Site B-50 Cu-metal ET-65/4 Pfeiffer 2009b Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/6 this study Site B-51 Cu-metal ET-65/5 Pfeiffer 2009b Maadi H31 II 5/4 Cu-ore** ET-5/1 this study Maadi F 32 II 13/4 Cu-ore** ET-5/2 this study Maadi H33 I, 63/6 Cu-prill ET-5/3 this study Maadi H33 I, 63/6 Cu-metal ET-5/3 b this study Maadi DE 36/3 7 83, 12 pin ET-5/4 this study Maadi 001 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 this study Maadi 002 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 b this study Maadi 003 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 c this study Maadi 004 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 d this study Maadi 005 Cu-ore** ET-5/6 this study Maadi 006 Cu-ore** ET-5/7 this study Maadi 007 Cu-ore** ET-5/8 this study Maadi 48 Cu-metal HDM 363 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 51 Cu-metal HDM 364 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 53 Cu-metal HDM 365 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 54 Cu-metal HDM 366 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 57 Cu-metal HDM 367 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Ain Soukhna Cu-ore * ET-66/1 this study Southern Sinai Watiyah Pass Northern Sinai Lower Egypt Eastern Desert (north) Cu-ore * ET-66/2 this study Gabal Zeit Pb-ore *** ET-67/1 this study Gabal Dara smelting slag ET-68/1a this study smelting slag ET-68/1b this study Eastern Desert Abu Greida, Cu-ore ** ET-70/1a this study (central) (Wadi Hamama) Cu-ore ** ET-70/1b this study Wadi Semna III Cu-ore *** ET-71/1a this study Cu-ore *** ET-71/1b this study Cu-ore *** ET-71/1c this study Cu-ore*** ET-78/1 this study Wadi Abu Mureiwat Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Tab. 3: Chemical composition of copper ores and one lead ore from Gabal Zeit (ET-67/1), Eastern Desert. Values of SiO2 to Cu given in wt.%, those of Ni to U in μg/g.The total of the analyses do not always sum up to 100 wt.% because Cu an d Fe are often corroded to secondary minerals.Sn and Ag with but one exception (ET-64/5: 110 μg/g) were found always to be < 30 μg/g. n.d. = not determined. Sample No. SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MnO MgO CaO Na2O P2O5 S Cu Ni Zn Pb As Sb Bi Cr Co Ag U ET-1/3 3,53 <0.01 48,5 <0.01 0,14 0,17 <0.01 0,06 4,03 29,0 760 <10 30 <10 <10 340 40 <10 <10 210 ET-1/9 4,15 <0.01 10,3 0,02 0,16 0,34 0,07 0,03 5,98 53,1 60 <10 250 <10 <10 80 70 <10 30 30 ET-1/10 67,3 1,39 16,5 0,03 0,32 0,80 0,03 0,04 <0.01 12,0 55 <10 320 <10 <10 130 40 <10 <10 80 ET-54/1 66,9 21,6 1,40 0,14 1,45 0,04 0,55 0,13 0,09 0,12 10 445 <10 120 30 <10 190 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-55/1 45,9 12,1 34,5 0,24 1,53 0,07 0,73 0,23 <0.01 0,044 <10 620 30 350 <10 245 3010 10 n.d. n.d. ET-55/2 50,1 13,8 22,2 0,20 2,23 0,07 1,42 0,17 0,01 0,024 10 1685 <10 120 <10 155 10790 25 n.d. n.d. ET-55/3a 3,64 37,0 1,56 <0.01 0,08 0,05 0,23 29,4 0,06 5,52 10 20650 <10 110 <10 <10 40 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-55/3b 2,35 37,7 1,62 <0.01 0,01 0,03 0,08 29,8 0,11 5,23 <10 30750 <10 100 40 <10 25 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-55/4 37,3 3,84 28,7 17,3 2,51 1,93 0,38 1,08 <0.01 0,037 30 590 65 40 <10 205 225 265 n.d. n.d. ET-56/1 70,0 12,1 11,8 0,08 0,04 0,09 0,03 0,60 0,02 0,036 <10 510 <10 110 <10 88 10 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-58/1 48,5 10,1 2,87 0,12 0,42 0,90 0,05 1,44 0,22 23,9 40 260 9090 10 <10 30 100 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-58/2 45,4 28,7 1,56 0,00 0,44 0,40 0,04 <0.01 <0.01 13,8 20 90 <10 60 <10 25 <10 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-59/1a 1,57 35,8 0,48 <0.01 0,01 0,04 0,08 28,6 0,07 5,20 <10 9810 <10 100 <10 25 60 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-59/1b 0,36 36,4 0,58 <0.01 0,02 0,03 0,14 29,9 0,13 6,69 <10 5500 <10 180 <10 <10 105 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-59/1c 0,66 35,9 1,69 0,24 0,00 0,02 0,03 28,6 0,13 5,91 <10 10450 <10 350 <10 10 <10 <10 n.d. n.d. ET-63/2 45,7 9,45 24,4 0,16 4,50 0,21 0,05 <0.01 <0.01 7,28 420 1400 <10 30 <10 175 390 115 <10 210 ET-64/3 84,9 0,29 4,50 <0.01 0,12 0,25 0,05 0,02 0,09 6,71 340 320 10 <10 <10 45 530 <10 <10 40 ET-64/4 42,9 18,9 13,8 0,16 5,00 8,25 2,59 0,63 0,04 0,018 400 70 <10 60 <10 115 485 540 20 70 ET-64/5 16,1 0,21 0,74 <0.01 0,23 0,58 0,09 0,05 2,25 54,2 60 50 210 <10 <10 <10 650 <10 110 10 ET-65/1 75,1 4,44 0,36 0,06 0,40 0,55 0,12 0,11 0,06 14,0 630 30 350 30 <10 <10 60 320 <10 <10 ET-65/2 76,2 4,27 0,35 0,04 0,26 0,73 0,09 0,09 0,05 11,9 500 50 35 20 <10 10 30 10 <10 <10 ET-65/3 75,4 3,62 0,62 0,06 0,32 0,47 0,09 0,06 0,06 14,8 560 1200 970 30 <10 <10 25 105 10 <10 ET-65/6 46,8 17,6 2,35 0,33 0,78 13,4 3,31 0,16 0,21 3,27 280 360 490 10200 <10 20 25 <10 20 <10 ET-66/1 82,8 2,66 2,55 0,13 0,14 0,27 0,02 0,01 0,05 7,02 480 <10 1860 40 1130 20 15 101 30 50 ET-67/1 0,52 <0.01 14,8 n.b 3,05 26,0 1,08 n.b 11,9 <0.001 n.d. 60500 11.9 % 10 20 3185 45 n.d. <10 5200 ET-70/1a 80,3 3,99 6,82 0,41 2,64 0,20 0,01 0,02 <0.01 2,31 260 <10 90 40 885 60 10 170 20 80 ET-70/1b 52,3 19,4 12,2 0,32 3,91 0,25 1,05 0,07 0,03 3,59 390 <10 395 100 <10 100 160 55 <10 120 ET-71/1a 95,8 0,87 0,75 0,13 0,05 0,08 0,02 0,01 0,02 1,10 185 <10 10 <10 855 15 <10 38 20 30 39 40 Tab. 3: Continuation. Sample No. SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MnO MgO CaO Na2O P2O5 S Cu Ni Zn Pb As Sb Bi Cr Co Ag U ET-71/1b 42,8 1,53 24,2 0,10 1,13 0,85 0,02 0,10 <0.01 19,0 785 <10 45 30 2080 160 35 80 <10 220 ET-71/1c 59,8 3,03 12,6 0,03 1,60 1,12 0,02 0,04 0,02 13,3 680 <10 25 30 1350 95 25 40 <10 130 ET-75/1 60,4 7,49 18,0 0,11 2,51 0,28 0,29 0,03 0,01 5,51 290 20 <10 40 <10 140 <10 30 <10 <10 ET-76/1 64,1 15,3 5,04 0,16 1,67 0,33 2,44 0,09 0,05 5,27 310 110 <10 50 <10 50 <10 40 <10 <10 no No. 41,2 9,56 2,06 0,31 1,35 0,63 0,85 0,09 1,74 23,5 650 180 520 70 <10 20 45 55 20 20 Tab. 4: Chemical composition of copper smelting slags, a piece of matte and of two slagged tuyères from the Sinai Peninsula and from the Eastern Desert. Values of SiO2 to Cu given in wt.%, Ni to U in μg/g.The total of the analyses do not always sum up to 100 wt.% because Cu an d Fe are often corroded to secondary minerals. Sn was found always to be < 40 μg/g. n.d. = not determined. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Sample No. SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MnO MgO ET-50/1 23,2 4,48 29,9 21,6 ET-51/1 36,2 2,97 42,2 3,29 ET-52/1 31,8 7,04 16,6 26,1 ET-53/1 52,6 7,76 2,36 1,65 ET-57/1 24,3 4,46 33,4 ET-59/2 24,1 3,63 30,3 ET-63/1 0,13 0,58 0,29 ET-63/4 5,48 0,12 8,60 CaO Na2O P2O5 S Cu Ni Zn 1,06 7,80 0,50 0,20 1,71 10,0 0,31 0,11 2,69 12,3 0,69 0,23 3,99 21,2 0,64 0,09 14,5 1,48 9,30 0,68 0,10 <0.01 7,65 0,62 1,25 5,03 0,59 0,12 0,12 24,5 <0.01 0,10 0,43 0,05 0,04 15,9 59,4 <0.01 0,04 0,30 0,08 0,07 0,37 73,7 Pb As Sb Bi Cr Co Ag U 0,29 10,4 <10 <0.01 2,71 <10 <10 50 <10 <10 235 50 250 n.d. n.d. <10 <10 <10 <10 310 50 120 n.d. n.d. 1,32 0,65 0,10 8,69 <10 <10 <10 <10 <10 130 80 120 n.d. n.d. <10 <10 80 950 <10 450 145 100 n.d. n.d. <10 <10 50 <10 <10 245 490 90 n.d. n.d. 2740 550 80 120 <10 230 1090 870 10 230 1650 2800 1100 10 <10 <10 100 <10 70 <10 100 80 230 210 <10 690 780 <10 30 90 ET-64/1 15,6 0,07 5,72 <0.01 0,25 1,63 0,07 0,06 2,93 51,1 60 60 190 <10 <10 450 630 <10 60 60 ET-64/2a 8,96 <0.01 12,8 <0.01 0,05 0,17 <0.01 0,03 2,60 45,4 100 80 110 <10 3000 110 80 10 380 120 ET-64/2b 35,1 0,49 55,0 <0.01 0,36 1,56 0,12 0,02 0,02 1,29 140 <10 160 <10 1600 320 35 <10 <10 360 ET-68/1a 69,1 2,38 9,8 0,14 0,87 3,03 0,03 0,07 0,16 6,42 450 <10 60 30 830 850 20 30 10 110 ET-68/1b 16,3 4,72 57,8 0,54 1,65 10,5 0,42 0,29 <0.01 0,033 90 <10 30 40 900 330 100 50 <10 350 ET-72/1 32,1 5,10 38,8 8,61 1,64 6,52 0,81 0,21 0,03 1,53 210 <10 40 50 780 265 80 90 <10 310 ET-73/1a 84,5 0,49 3,25 0,01 0,24 0,09 <0.01 0,02 <0.01 6,95 480 <10 60 <10 1100 360 130 10 50 50 ET-73/1b 74,3 13,2 2,07 0,12 0,92 4,67 0,80 0,23 0,04 1,04 200 <10 20 75 <10 260 15 10 <10 40 A C 41 B D Fig. 31: Some petrographic-textural characteristics of copper ores from the ore deposits of Um Bogma and Faynan and from archaeological sites of the northern Sinai and from Maadi. A Maadi. Banded chrysocolla with thin layers of manganese rich shales (ET-5/5). Width of the piece c. 5 mm. B Um Bogma, Sinai. Massive chrysocolla intergrown with black shales (Freiberg, Ore deposit collection # no. 6206 = ET-12/1 in Hauptmann et al. 1999). Note petrographic similarities between A and B. Width of pieces c. 3 - 6 mm. C Northern Sinai, site B-50 (Eliezer Oren, 1974, EBA I). Copper bearing arcosic sandstone with green colored quartz grains (ET-65/3). In parts, the samples are considerably darkened by manganese oxides. Width of the piece 3 cm. D Faynan. Matrix mineralisation of copper silicates in manganese bearing, black arcosic sandstone and replacement of quartz grains by copper silicates which lead to their characteristic blue-green coloring (cf. Hauptmann 2007). Note petrographic similarities to C. Width of picture c. 1.5 cm. Sinai, the Eastern Desert and the Wadi Arabah in the Southern Levant. There is also no indication that Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age copper artefacts high in arsenic and nickel, as found at Maadi, in the Southern Levant (Kfar Monash, Hauptmann et al. 2012) and at other localities in the Near East (overview in Hauptmann 2007, 297f.) may have their origin in the Eastern Desert/Sinai region. The only locality where ore rich in arsenic occurs is Wadi Tar in the south-east corner of the Sinai Peninsula. Native copper and copper-arsenides Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 occur in this deposit with low concentrations of Zn, Mn, Pb, Ag and Sb. They were found in a possibly ancient prospecting trench, but it remains unknown whether at all this small mineralisation support the early metal production in the region. One of the characteristic features of the ores from the Sinai Peninsula are extremely high concentrations of P2O5. Examples are not only ores from Serabit El-Khadim, where turquoise is the most typical mineral, also ores from the mining area “45” near Um Bogma may show nearly 30 wt.% of P2O5. We 42 also found uranium contents in copper ores between 30 to > 200 ppm in the ores collected in the Sinai, and in the Eastern Desert. One Pb-Zn-ore from Gabal Zeit reached 0.5% uranium. Almost all ores from Sinai are high in Al2O3 (10 – 36 wt.%). Of special importance are iron-rich copper ores associated with manganese ores. Such ores occur in large quantities in the Um Bogma area and they are exploited up to this date. In ancient times manganese bearing copper ores were used because of the advantages of manganese oxide for slag formation. An example of such an ore is # ET-55/4 from the mining are “45” near Um Bogma. It contains 17 wt.% MnO and almost 29 wt.% Fe2O3. Otherwise the ores are in parts high in iron oxides. dates from the same time period as the large smelting site of Bir Nasib. Slags All slags analysed (Table 4) are residues of the production of copper and are smelting slag. Slags were collected and analysed for two purposes, namely to determine their manganese- and iron-oxide concentrations to find possible indications to similarly composed mineralisations, i. e., if the slags would result from the sedimentary deposits of the Um Bogma area or from other mineralisations in the Sinai Peninsula, and to analyse their lead isotope ratios. In contrast to the large variety of ores which we collected during our surveys (which are necessarily not the ones that were used for smelting copper in ancient times), with ancient slags and their entrapped copper prills one can get a better idea of the types ores that were smelted in ancient times. A comprehensive study of the archaeometallurgy of slags from the Sinai Peninsula was published by Bachmann (1980). All slags are high in CaO (7-10 wt.%). Sample ET-53/1 from the Early Bronze Age smelting site of Bir Nasib “Rod” with > 20 wt.% CaO, and with > 50 wt.% SiO2 is a fragment of a vitrified furnace lining, not a smelting slag. Slags high in both manganese (ca. 20 wt.%) and iron-oxides (ca. 30 wt.%) were found at two localities, namely at the Early Bronze Age sites of Wadi Homr (ET-50/1) and at the mouth of Wadi Ba’Ba (ET57/1; ca. 33 wt.% MnO, ca. 15 wt.% FeO). Their main constituent is knebelite ((Fe,Mn)2SiO4) high in CaO. Such slags were also analysed from the large New Kingdom/Late Bronze Age/Iron Age I smelting site of Bir Nasib (ET-52/1). They obviously result from smelting (self-fluxing) shales high in manganese and iron oxide as they occur in the Um Bogma area. More precisely, the slags from Wadi Ba’Ba (ET-57/1) derived most probably from ore of the mining area “45” which is a few kilometres from the smelting site. Mixed Fe-Mn-silicate slags were frequently observed previously by Bachmann (1980) and Bachmann et al. (unpublished report) from Timna and from sites in the Sinai as well; and they were found also at archaeometallurgical smelting sites in the Faynan area (Hauptmann 2007). Slags high in iron oxides were found at the smelting site of the Wadi Nasib/Wadi Sih (ET-51/1) which also Pfeiffer (2009b) and Beit-Arieh (2003) published slag analyses from the Early Bronze Age sites of Watiya, Nabi Salah, Sheikh Mukhsen, Wadi Ahmar and from Wadi Zagra which were iron-rich copper smelting slags low in manganese oxide. These slags most probably originate from mineralisations in the crystalline basement of the south-central Sinai. Such a composition equals most of the archaeometallurgical slags found in the Old World. In our case these slags are indication for a possibly contemporaneous smelting of Mn-rich ores at the one hand, and Fe-Mncopper ores at the other hand in close vicinity. Lead isotopy Lead isotope analyses are compiled in table 5. Figure 32 provides an overall picture of lead isotope abundance ratios 208Pb/206Pb vs. 207Pb/206Pb of ores and metallurgical finds from Sinai, and the Eastern Desert. For comparison, ore and metallurgical finds from Faynan and Timna are depicted in the diagrams also. In Figure 32A the lead isotope ratios of 204Pb/206Pb vs. 207Pb/206Pb are shown including arrows which point to uranogenic 206Pb-enriched compositions. In this diagram we included the twostage-model by Stacey & Kramers (1975). In accordance with the geological context the dominant lead source for the copper deposits in the Sinai Peninsula, and in the sediment hosted copper deposits of Timna and Faynan as well were Lower Cambrian / Precambrian mafic-felsic dikes of the igneous basement (Burgath et al. 1984; Segev et al. 1992). They originated from a similar geochemical source with μ (238U/204Pb) ≈ 10.The highest ages are reached by copper ores from the Proterozoic basement of the Eastern Desert with > 800 Ma. Erosion of the volcanic rocks during the lower Cambrian and multiple remobilization and migration of copper in uranium-containing sedimentary environments during the Cambrian and later periods finally lead to an epigenetic type ore deposit. Copper ore from the Precambrian and post-Precambrian stratiform-stratabound sediment-hosted deposits, namely Um Bogma, Faynan, and Timna are characterised by highly variable ratios of non-radiogenic to radiogenic lead which do not provide significant Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Tab. 5: Lead isotope compositions of ores, slags and metal objects from the Sinai Peninsula and from the Eastern Desert. * Surface collected samples; ** Ore from archaeological contexts; *** Bedrock ore; h.e. = high error; n.a. = not analysed. Note that the sample numbers of the copper ores from Wadi El-Regeita (ET-5/1 and 5/2) come from an outdated system (Hauptmann et al. 1999). These samples are different from those found at Maadi. Sample No. Pb (μg/g) 208Pb/206Pb 207Pb/206Pb 204Pb/206Pb 208Pb/204Pb 207Pb/204Pb 206Pb/204Pb Region Locality Type Southern Sinai Sheikh Muhsen Cu-ore*** ET-1/3 30 1,239 0,5330 0,0322 38,429 16,529 31,010 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-1/4 140 1,977 0,7904 0,0502 39,404 15,752 19,929 Pfeiffer 2009b References Cu-lump ET-1/5 420 2,098 0,8577 0,0547 38,364 15,682 18,284 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-1/6 1100 2,083 0,8498 0,0542 38,466 15,693 18,467 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-1/7 380 2,097 0,8518 0,0544 38,581 15,669 18,395 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-1/8 290 2,109 0,8593 0,0547 38,566 15,710 18,284 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore** ET-1/9 250 1,956 0,7961 0,0506 38,689 15,747 19,781 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore** ET-1/10 320 1,916 0,7965 0,0505 37,928 15,765 19,792 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-metal 145 1080 2,120 0,8697 0,0557 38,093 15,628 17,969 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-metal 6678 50 2,108 0,8696 0,0558 37,769 15,584 17,921 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Sheikh Awad Cu-metal 225 100 2,095 0,8530 0,0545 38,446 15,654 18,352 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Wadi Samra Cu-ore** ET-4/1 580 1,777 0,7058 0,0446 39,874 15,839 22,442 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-4/2 180 2,065 0,8460 0,0543 38,028 15,580 18,416 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-6/1 20 1,929 0,7885 0,0499 38,694 15,817 20,060 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore** ET-6/2 90 1,458 0,6061 0,0374 38,992 16,206 26,738 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** ET-10/1 2000 2,117 0,8792 0,0566 37,439 15,547 17,683 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** ET-10/2 640 2,072 0,8609 0,0553 37,490 15,579 18,096 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore*** T500 n.a. 2,0415 0,8498 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Segal et al. 2000 Wadi Rimti Wadi Tar Cu-ore*** T800 n.a. 2,048 0,8528 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. Segal et al. 2000 unknown Cu-ore*** ET-11/1 40 2,045 0,8391 0,0537 38,059 15,617 18,612 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Umm Bogma (mining area "45") Cu-ore*** ET-12/1 60 2,016 0,8083 0,0517 39,036 15,650 19,361 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore *** ET-55/1 30 2,089 0,8486 0,0541 38,588 15,673 18,470 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise *** ET-55/3a < 10 1,932 0,7914 0,0502 38,493 15,766 19,920 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise *** ET-55/3b < 10 1,940 0,7926 0,0503 38,552 15,754 19,875 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Homr smelting slag ET-50/1 50 2,097 0,8545 0,0545 38,490 15,682 18,351 Pfeiffer 2009b Bir Nasib 1 smelting slag ET-51/1 < 10 2,103 0,8563 0,0545 38,586 15,709 18,345 Pfeiffer 2009b Bir Nasib "Rod" smelting slag ET-53/1 80 2,085 0,8475 0,0539 38,675 15,719 18,547 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Kharig Cu-ore * ET-54/1 < 10 2,058 0,8376 0,0533 38,602 15,710 18,756 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Maghara turquoise *** ET-56/1 < 10 2,091 0,8477 0,0540 38,719 15,695 18,515 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Ba'Ba smelting slag ET-57/1 50 2,105 0,8590 0,0548 38,432 15,681 18,254 Pfeiffer 2009b 43 44 Tab. 5: Continuation. Region Locality Type Sample No. Pb (μg/g) 208Pb/206Pb 207Pb/206Pb 204Pb/206Pb 208Pb/204Pb 207Pb/204Pb Wadi El-Regeita Cu-ore*** ET-5/1 270 1,940 0,8023 0,0511 37,959 Cu-ore*** ET-5/2 520 2,071 0,8500 0,0544 38,068 Serabit el-Khadim Nabi Salah Watiyah Pass References 15,701 19,569 Hauptmann et al. 1999 15,622 18,379 Hauptmann et al. 1999 Cu-ore *** ET-58/1 9090 2,114 0,8613 0,0548 38,578 15,720 18,253 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore *** ET-58/2 < 10 1,984 0,8010 0,0510 38,896 15,704 19,607 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1a < 10 1,999 0,8216 0,0524 38,161 15,685 19,092 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1b < 10 2,094 0,8594 0,0550 38,068 15,627 18,182 Pfeiffer 2009b turquoise * ET-59/1c < 10 2,084 0,8510 0,0544 38,322 15,646 18,385 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-59/2 80 2,098 0,8565 h. e. h. e. h. e. h. e. Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-lump ET-59/3 0 2,077 0,8395 0,0534 38,885 15,718 18,723 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-63/1 1100 1,968 0,7651 0,0485 40,592 15,782 20,629 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore ** ET-63/2 <10 0,872 0,4209 h. e. h. e. h. e. h. e. Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-prill ET-63/3 240 2,003 0,8194 0,0521 38,477 15,739 19,207 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-63/4 230 2,116 0,8642 0,0551 38,380 15,676 18,139 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-metal ET-63/5 580 2,126 0,8712 0,0556 38,240 15,669 17,985 Pfeiffer 2009b Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 smelting slag ET-64/1 190 2,000 0,8244 0,0527 37,940 15,641 18,972 Pfeiffer 2009b copper ore** ET-64/2 < 10 2,010 0,8298 h. e. h. e. h. e. h. e. Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-64/2a 110 1,567 0,6575 0,0410 38,175 16,022 24,368 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-64/2b 160 2,055 0,8391 0,0532 38,662 15,782 18,809 Pfeiffer 2009b Cu-ore ** ET-64/5 210 2,009 0,8298 h. e. h. e. h. e. h. e. this study Cu-ore ** ET-64/3 10 1,204 0,5079 0,0308 39,074 16,489 32,467 Pfeiffer 2009b smelting slag ET-72/1 40 2,034 0,8146 0,0519 39,189 15,690 19,262 Pfeiffer 2009b tuyère fragments ET-73/1a 60 1,865 0,7640 0,0483 38,609 15,817 20,703 Pfeiffer 2009b ET-73/1b 20 2,005 0,8111 0,0514 39,049 15,794 19,472 Pfeiffer 2009b Site B-10 Cu-ore ** ET-65/2 35 2,113 0,8657 0,0553 38,220 15,659 18,087 this study Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/1 30 2,124 0,8688 0,0553 38,372 15,701 18,073 this study Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/3 970 2,121 0,8689 0,0554 38,276 15,682 18,047 this study Site B-50 Cu-metal ET-65/4 300 2,094 0,8471 0,0540 38,776 15,689 18,520 Pfeiffer 2009b Site B-50 Cu-ore ** ET-65/6 490 2,064 0,8592 0,0551 37,443 15,584 18,138 this study Site B-51 Cu-metal ET-65/5 620 2,111 0,8602 0,0550 38,399 15,650 18,194 Pfeiffer 2009b Wadi Nefoukh Wadi Ahmar Northern Sinai 206Pb/204Pb Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Tab. 5: Continuation. Region Locality Type Sample No. Pb (μg/g) 208Pb/206Pb 207Pb/206Pb 204Pb/206Pb 208Pb/204Pb 207Pb/204Pb 206Pb/204Pb References Lower Egypt Maadi H31 II 5/4 Cu-ore** ET-5/1 n.a. 2,064 0,8308 0,0530 38,961 15,686 18,879 this study Maadi F 32 II 13/4 Cu-ore** ET-5/2 n.a. 2,096 0,8547 0,0545 38,424 15,670 18,334 this study Maadi H33 I, 63/6 Cu-prill ET-5/3 n.a. 2,007 0,8165 0,0520 38,571 15,695 19,222 this study Maadi H33 I, 63/6 Cu-metal ET-5/3 b 60 1,996 0,8050 0,0515 38,631 15,635 19,408 this study Maadi DE 36/3 7 83, 12 pin ET-5/4 n.a. 2,117 0,8645 0,0551 38,402 15,686 18,144 this study Maadi 001 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 n.a. 2,083 0,8524 0,0546 38,157 15,618 18,322 this study Maadi 002 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 b n.a. 2,071 0,8435 0,0540 38,202 15,604 18,503 this study Maadi 003 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 c n.a. 1,999 0,8076 0,0516 38,605 15,645 19,371 this study Maadi 004 Cu-ore** ET-5/5 d n.a. 1,998 0,8073 0,0517 38,524 15,619 19,345 this study Maadi 005 Cu-ore** ET-5/6 n.a. 2,032 0,817 0,0523 38,872 15,633 19,135 this study Maadi 006 Cu-ore** ET-5/7 n.a. 2,031 0,8181 0,0523 38,791 15,631 19,106 this study Maadi 007 Cu-ore** ET-5/8 n.a. 1,975 0,795 0,0508 38,910 15,665 19,702 this study Maadi 48 Cu-metal HDM 363 210 2,068 0,8434 0,0539 38,531 15,650 18,555 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 51 Cu-metal HDM 364 2030 2,102 0,8575 0,0548 38,370 15,653 18,255 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 53 Cu-metal HDM 365 1670 2,102 0,8579 0,0548 38,385 15,670 18,266 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 54 Cu-metal HDM 366 1120 2,093 0,8518 0,0544 38,476 15,658 18,382 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Maadi 57 Cu-metal HDM 367 560 2,101 0,8566 0,0546 38,458 15,681 18,307 Hauptmann et al. 2012 Eastern Desert (north) Eastern Desert (central) Ain Soukhna Cu-ore ** ET-66/1 1860 2,175 0,9036 0,0580 37,506 15,585 17,248 this study Cu-ore ** ET-66/2 190 2,101 0,8568 0,0547 38,398 15,656 18,275 this study Gabal Zeit Pb-ore *** ET-67/1 11900 2,012 0,8015 0,0508 39,636 15,786 19,696 this study Gabal Dara smelting slag ET-68/1a 60 1,270 0,5407 0,0329 38,540 16,413 30,352 this study smelting slag ET-68/1b 30 2,002 0,7997 0,0509 39,298 15,698 19,630 this study Cu-ore ** ET-70/1a 90 2,106 0,8738 0,0564 37,370 15,505 17,745 this study Cu-ore ** ET-70/1b 395 2,150 0,8927 0,0569 37,751 15,679 17,560 this study Abu Greida (Wadi Hamama) Wadi Semna III Wadi Abu Mureiwat Cu-ore *** ET-71/1a 10 2,082 0,8552 0,0551 37,801 15,530 18,159 this study Cu-ore *** ET-71/1b 45 2,082 0,8506 0,0547 38,049 15,546 18,276 this study Cu-ore *** ET-71/1c 25 2,088 0,8523 0,0546 38,242 15,611 18,319 this study Cu-ore** ET-78/1 <10 2,054 0,8378 0,0538 38,188 15,572 18,588 this study 45 46 Fig. 32 (above) and 32A (below): Normalised 206Pb (lead isotope) ratios commonly used in archaeology for provenance studies. Fig. 32A with lead evolution curves after Stacey & Kramers (1975). Overall composition of copper ores, copper smelting slags, and other metallurgical artefacts from Sinai (Segal et al. 2000; Hauptmann et al. 1999; Pfeiffer 2010; present data) are compared to copper ores and metal produced from these ores from Faynan and Timna in the Wadi Arabah, Southern Levant (Hauptmann 2007; Asael 2010; Jansen 2011). Also copper ores and slag samples from the Eastern Desert are plotted. Note the cluster of compositions at 207Pb/206Pb = 0.84 – 0.88 for data from Sinai, Faynan and from Timna. All other values of lead isotope data are due to an epigenetic origin of the copper mineralisations in the sedimentary environments. As exemplified with the locality of Um Bogma, this can lead to large variability from the ore in a single deposit. Note the negative ages caused by uranium contents in the sediments. Analytical error smaller than 0.1 %, i. e., smaller than symbols. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 differences in their compositions. We recognize pronounced clusters of 208Pb/206Pb vs. 207Pb/206Pb ratios at 2.10 to 2.12 and 0.855 to 0.875 in the copper districts of Timna, Faynan, and in the Sinai as well (Hauptmann et al. 1992; Hauptmann 2007; Asael 2010). A progressive relative increase in radiogenic lead is observed in copper ore from all these deposits which finally lead to “negative” ages. Lead associated with uranium in the ore has its isotopic composition changed due to the addition of 206Pb from the radioactive decay of 238U. This is the reason for a large variety of compositions which reaches far into the lower left corner in both diagrams. Lead isotope ratios, in addition, show that ore and slag from the same locality may have enormous variations. For example, ore from Um Bogma vary in their 207Pb/206Pb-ratios between ± 0.79 to 0.85. The compositions of the ores are reflected by that of slags and metal artefacts from various sites. Many of the slag fragments, and the tuyères from Wadi Ahmar as well, contain tiny copper prills. All these metallurgical finds were completely molten (and other metallurgical finds such as tuyères more ore less as well) so that the lead from whatever individual copper ore sources may have contributed to the total, and will have been homogenised so that the isotopic composition of lead in the prills and lead in the matrix will be identical. In Figure 33 isotope ratios of ores and metal objects from Maadi are plotted with those from sites along the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula (“Way of Horus”; sites B-10, B-50, B-51), and from Wadi Ghazzeh as well. These plots were selected to help verify an exchange of copper (ore or metal) as part of the well established cultural interaction between Lower Egypt and the Southern Levant during the 4th millennium BC. This was previously suggested (see above), and an import of a copper artefact high in nickel and arsenic from sources in Eastern Anatolia was proposed (Pernicka & Hauptmann 1989; Hauptmann 2007, 261-267). Site B-50 dates from the EBA I. Three of the ore samples prove to have 208Pb/206Pb-ratios between around 2.11 and 2.12 which all are identical with copper ore of the Dolomite-Limestone-Shale Unit at Faynan.This ore horizon was mainly (but not exclusively) exploited during the developed Early Bronze Age. The lead isotope ratios also match compositions of copper ore analysed from the ancient copper deposit of Timna (Hauptmann 2007). The provenance of Faynan for this ore, however, is confirmed by their petrographic features: their arkosic compositions with striking bluish-greenish coloured quartz grains typically occur at Faynan, but not at Timna, and it was never observed in the Sinai. Additionally, two copper artefacts from the northern Sinai sites (a needle ET-65/4 and a not identifiable piece of copper ET-65/5) match the isotopic composition of the ores and at least one unidentifiable piece of metal from Maadi. Note that ratio of metal artefact Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 HDM 363, a CuAsNi-alloy, matches an ore fragment from Maadi, but this association can be rejected because of its minor and trace element concentrations: the ore consists of pure copper. 47 The “Way of Horus” begins in the east at the Wadi Ghazzeh. One of the sites located in this wadi is site H which dates from the Early Bronze Age Ia (Roshwalb 1981). Ore from the site were already analyzed by Hauptmann (1989) and found to be consistent with those from Faynan. In addition, two copper prills and an awl (IL-2/8, 9, 10) which were analyzed by Hauptmann (2007, 267,272) also match the “ore field” of Faynan. Taking the arguments for a distribution of copper ore and metal from the Faynan district during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ia-periods to the northwest, as they are discussed in Hauptmann (1989; 2007, 261-272), we can pinpoint a route to the northern Sinai from Faynan. At least two of the metal objects from Maadi (HDM 364, HDM 365) match these compositions. Based on these data, and based on the observation of Pernicka & Hauptmann (1989) that some of the copper ore found at Maadi could originate from the Dolomite-Limestone-Shale Unit of Faynan (Pernicka & Hauptmann 1989, 138f.), there is a strong indication for a supply of ore from this source. Otherwise, the 208Pb/206Pb vs. 207Pb/206Pb and 204Pb/206Pb-ratios of Maadi ores and metals tend to have lower ratios compared to those from Northern Sinai and Wadi Ghazzeh. This, on the other hand, means that we found no copper ore or slag from the Eastern Desert which could have been a suitable starting material for the Maadi artefacts. This holds true for the sample ET-66/1 analysed from the archaeological site of Ain Sukhna (208Pb/206Pb = 2.175), a smelting site which is located in a distance of 150 km from Maadi. We can also exclude the possibility that copper produced at the smelting site of Gabal Dara (ET-68/1a,b; 208Pb/206Pb = 1.277 and 2.002) was ever utilized at Maadi, and the same is true for the ore sample ET-70/1b from Abu Greida (208Pb/206Pb = 2.150). However three ores collected at Semna I (ET-71/1a,b,c) are compatible with ores and metals from tombs of the necropolis at Abydos / Umm el-Qaab in all three isotope ratios (Hartung et al. in prep.). It seems reasonable to suggest that at least a part of the finds from Abydos originate from Semna I. While the distance between Abydos and Semna is ca. 150 km, the distance between Maadi and Semna is more than 500 km. As outlined above, although the main stream of cultural interactions between the Levant and Lower Egypt was running via the Northern Sinai, relations from Maadi to the bay of Aqaba, namely to Tell Hujayrat alGhuzlan and Tell Magass, are indicated by the design of copper ingots and casting moulds found especially at Hujayrat, which show great similarity to Maadi 48 Fig. 33: Normalised 206Pb-ratios for metal artefacts and ores from Maadi (Hauptmann et al. 2012) are compared to those found at (EBA I) sites at the Northern Sinai, and in Wadi Ghazzeh, Southern Levant (Hauptmann 2007, 272). The congruence of ores and metals between Wadi Ghazzeh and Northern Sinai indicates a trade route of material starting from Faynan, Wadi Arabah to the north-east and then to the west. The isotope ratios of metals and ores from Maadi do not discredit the existence of the route. Note sample HDM 363 which is a CuAsNi-alloy that differs in its minor- and trace element pattern from the isotopicall matching ore. Analytical error smaller than 0.1 %, i. e., smaller than symbols. (Pfeiffer 2009a), and the scarcity of finds of metal smelting or processing, such as slag, at Maadi suggests an import of metal also from the Aqaba region. It was proved by Hauptmann et al. (2009) that most of the ore found at Tell Magass originated from the ore deposit of Timna and neighbouring mineralisations at the western rim of the Wadi Arabah. Possible imports of copper ore from Faynan, or even from more remote sources such as the south-west Sinai could not be fully excluded, but nothing was found at the excavations that strongly suggests such a possibility. The same is true for Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan. The composition of copper produced at the two sites is representative of the copper deposit of Timna, and this is the most likely source. As shown in Figure 34 all metal finds from the Aqaba region could be interpreted as mixtures from this source. Maadi copper matches Hujayrat and Magass, and it lies on the mixing line of copper from Timna. Therefore, there are no arguments against an origin of Maadi copper from Timna. This is in accordance with some Egyptian finds at Hujayrat which suggest exchange connections between Maadi and the Aqaba region in the middle of the 4th millennium BC. One exception is HDM 363, a fragment of an axe Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 49 Fig. 34: Normalised 206Pb-ratios for metal artefacts and ores from Maadi (Hauptmann et al. 2012) are compared to those found at the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age I settlements of Tell Magass (Hauptmann et al. 2009) and Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan (unpubl. Data Bochum/Berlin/Amman) in the Aqaba region, where ores from Timna were smelted. The metallurgical finds from Tell Hujayrat consist of copper-rich slag. Note the concordance of metals from Maadi and the Aqaba region, and with some Sinai ores as well. Sample HDM 363, a CuAsNi-alloy, differs in its minor- and trace element pattern from the isotopically matching ore. Analytical error smaller than 0.1 %, i. e., smaller than symbols. high in Ni and As which points to a provenance from Anatolia (Hauptmann et al. in prep.). On the other hand, based solely on the geochemical and isotopic similarity, we can not distinguish between the three ore districts with absolute certainty. This is especially true for clusters of isotopic composition at 207Pb/206Pb between c. 0.845 and 0.87. We can, however, note from Figure 34 that many compositions of ores and metals from Sinai show a pronounced tendency towards an enrichment of Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 206Pb. Four of the Maadi copper artifacts, and four pieces of Maadi copper ore can not be distinguished in their isotopic composition from copper ores analysed from, e. g., Sheikh Muksen and Um Bogma on the Sinai Peninsula. Pernicka & Hauptmann (1989) argue, due to petrographic-textural features, that the Maadi ore could possibly originate from the Wadi Arabah, but ore fragments of sample no. ET-5/5, and the previously investigated ore sample no. 52 (in Pernicka & Hauptmann 1989, 138) could also have been transported to Maadi from the Um Bogma area. Conclusions 50 During the expeditions of the Sinai project investigations primarily included the survey and study of mines and smelting sites in Sinai and the northern Eastern Desert. The main focus was to collect and analyse samples from the regions which had not previously been studied before. Because of the two expeditions we achieved an overview of the volume and scale of ore exploitation and archaeolometallurgical activies in the investigated area. All in all, five sites in the northern Eastern Desert and 16 sites in Sinai were visited and studied. Due to time constraints of fieldwork and the necessity of proper site investigation, the number of visited sites was limited. According to observations made during the survey, the size of the deposits and their possible mineral content is rather small in comparision to other copper districts exploited in ancient times such as Faynan, Cyprus, Murgul and Rio Tinto. The only exception is Um Bogma with its significant amounts of copper-manganese ores, which is still mined today. The quantity of metal extracted from various mineralisations and ore deposits can roughly be estimated by the amount of slag that was produced. In the case of the Sinai Peninsula, and in the Eastern Desert as well, the quantities of slag were rather low with the exception of the site of Bir Nasib. The bulk composition of the slag is in most cases high in iron and manganese silicates with considerable CaO-concentrations. Generally they match the overall composition of copper smelting slag known in the Old World. The copper ores of the Sinai Peninsula, and the northern part of the Eastern Desert with but one exception of the As-rich ores at Wadi Tar, reveal very low minorand trace-element concentrations.They consist of pure copper ores, and, hence, pure copper was produced from the sites we investigated. No ores were found which could have been used to manufacture the Late Chalcolithic CuAs- and CuAsSb-artefacts found in the Southrn Levant and the CuAsNi-artefacts excavated at Maadi and other localities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Geologically the copper ore deposits are located within the supra-regional aureole of gold anomalies which is most concentrated in the southern part of the Eastern Desert and Nubia. This anomaly led to the formation of many dozens of the famous ancient gold deposits. Even if no gold concentrations were analysed in our samples we would not exclude an exploitation of gold, e.g., in the Semna area (see Klemm et al. 2001; Botros 2002). Also mineralisations in the crystalline basement south of Timna are discussed as possible gold sources (Amar 1997). During the survey many sites could be dated by pottery or Egyptian inscriptions. When pottery was absent it was difficult to determine the age of a site. In a few cases we used the shape and design of tuyères (Wadi Ahmar) or specific topographic features of slag accumulations (Watiah Pass). No archaeometallurgical remains from the Chalcolithic were found. This is not surprising because in the 4th millennium BC, as a rule, copper was not smelted close to the mine, but rather inside of habitation sites. Further, copper was not extracted in large quantities like in the later EBA. Hence, archaeological evidence of copper smelting from Chalcolithic needs excavations of the habitation sites and can not be solved by the study of the mines. Also, prehistoric mining traces could have been destroyed by both ancient and recent works. In summary, most of the visited sites in Sinai can be dated to the Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age and partly to the Iron Age. The features in the northern Eastern Desert revealed dates presumably from Late Prehistoric, Old Kingdom and Ptolemaic/Roman Time The beginnings of mining activities in Wadi El-Regeita, Um Bogma and several places within the area of Bir Nasib have not been clarified yet. Although ore exploitation is evident in these places, it remains unclear when these activities occurred and whom was involved. Analytical data shows that in Early Bronze Age sites like Nabi Salah or Sheikh Muhsen ores from the local deposits were being smelted, and it can be clearly stated that the beginnings of mining in Sinai date earlier than the period of the Old Kingdom. An answer to these questions would need detailed observation and excavation. Also, in the mining district of Semna in the northern Eastern Desert, pottery sherds and siltstone workshops reveal a date in the Late Predynastic, Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom. Several remains of windpowered furnaces, or alternatively, evidence for windpowered smelting operations dating from the Early Bronze Age were found. Compared to the amounts of slag and the vitrified remains of the installations they indicate early smallscale metallurgy in some sites such as Watiya Pass or Wadi Nefoukh. These sites might date to a period between the Late EBA I and EBA II. One recently discovered smelting site at Wadi el-Homr (Abdel-Motelib unpubl.) was visited during the expedition in 2006. Similar to Wadi Ba’Ba (Petrie 1906) and Bir Nasib “Rōd El-Aiar” (Rothenberg 1979) the smelting site shows a particular topographic situation: the sites are located on top of hills in far distance to any mineralisation and ore deposit. The amounts of slag that have been produced vary between several tons to a few thousand tons (Wadi Ba’Ba). Preliminary dating of these sites points to activities during the 3rd millennium BC. Contemporary smelting sites of comparable topographic situation are known in Egypt (Wadi Dara), in the Southern Levant (Faynan, Timna/Wadi Arabah), and in the Aegean (Chrysokamino/Crete, Seriphos, Kea, Kythnos) (Hauptmann 2007). It was shown previously that these smelting sites resulted Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 from copper smelting using wind powered smelting furnaces, and we suggest that the new smelting sites on the Sinai Peninsula are further evidence for a widely distributed technology that developed during the Early Bronze Age. These furnaces obviously represent an overregional technological stage in the development of metallurgy and can be seen as precursors of smelting furnaces operated by bellows in later periods (Pfeiffer 2009b). Furthermore it is obvious, that both the number of wind powered furnaces and the high amounts of slag show a dramatic increase of these smelting techniques during the MBA and LBA. Bir Nasib, the most important smelting site of the Sinai Peninsula comprises several batteries of wind powered furnaces and outstanding amounts of copper slag. The slag heaps which accumulated at this locality were estimated to comprise more than a 100,000 tons. This clearly points to a smelting of large amounts of copper ore which must have been mined in the vicinity. The site dates to the Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age (New Kingdom), but earlier phases of production can not be excluded. Bir Nasib is not investigated properly. The era of mass production begins after the decline of copper production at Cyprus. It is not known, however, where the copper from Bir Nasib was transported to. Unfortunately, Bir Nasib is seriously underestimated as a major copper supplier in the Bronze and Iron Ages of the Eastern Mediterranean (see Stos 2009). From various archaeological and historical sources it is known that copper was “industrially” produced by expeditions organized by the Pharaonic administration. Although Bir Nasib holds a unique place in the Eastern Mediterranean, other sites of this time period, for instance Wadi Ba'Ba, produced large amounts of copper also. The site presents evidence for the use of wind powered furnaces. We have to take into consideration that it was the intention of the Old Kingdoms administration to develop a gigantic, supra-regional centre of copper production in the Sinai Peninsula. This would be one explanation for the discovery of the vast number of smelting furnaces by Castel et al. (2008) in the area of Bir Nasib. The authors describe batteries with a calculated number of around 3,000 single smelting units. Smelting sites of such a dimension are unknown in the Early Bronze Age Old World. These finds can be connected to sites such as Ain Soukhna in the Eastern Desert, where inscriptions left by Egyptian expeditions name persons that can be found in inscriptions in Sinai also. The scale of metal production in ancient times can be exemplified by another example, admittedly from later periods: c. 420,000 smelting furnaces (!), belonging to 6,000 Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 smelting batteries were calculated for Roman iron production in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland (Orzechowski 1993). The lack of slag near the batteries of wind-powered furnaces at Bir Nasib is difficult to explain. However, even if prehistoric smelting did not occur, it is not difficult to understand why planning such an operation makes sense. As clearly indicated by the largest smelting site of the Sinai Peninsula at Bir Nasib with its calculated giant slag heaps, ore resources were definitely available in prehistoric times. But, at present we do not have any conclusive evidence for prehistoric mining in this area, but this might be due to destruction by modern mining activities. A possible explanation for the absence of slag (absence of evidence is not evidence for absence) close to the Early Bronze Age batteries at Bir Nasib could have been caused by a recycling and re-melting of Early Bronze Age slag. Extensive recycling of copper rich slag from the Early Bronze Age in the Iron Age was a common practice at prehistoric Faynan (Hauptmann 2007, 245f.). Another peculiarity could be observed in some Sinaitic sites: the multi-layered clay tuyères from Um Bogma, Wadi Nasb/Wadi Sih and Bir Nasib. These tuyères are technological masterpieces and evidence for high technology in copper production. These big clay tuyères differ in size and diameter and show up to 15 phases of re-usage. Smaller clay tubes of only one or two applications were found in sites like Wadi Ahmar 1038/1039. So far the examples are unique and were found exclusively on Sinai, neither in the Levant nor in Egypt. They date from the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age and their existence in Sinai is outstanding. Therefore, wind-powered furnaces obviously represent a regional technological stage in the development of metallurgy and can be seen as precursors of smelting furnaces operated by bellows in later periods. Besides the archaeological survey, it was of central interest during our study to obtain lead isotope measurements for provenance studies. Concerning the sites of Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan and Tell Magass, Maadi and the sites along the Sinai mediterranean coast, new data obtained that support the theory that ore was exchanged during the first half of the 4th millennium BC. The total of mineralogical, chemical and lead isotope data analysed in this study show that during the 4th millennium BC Maadi did not rely on one source for its copper (ore) supply. It suggests a supply from several sources, namely ore deposits of Um Bogma or possibly other mineralisations in the southern part of the Sinai, and from more remote sources such as Timna and Faynan in the Wadi Arabah. This is confirmed by 51 one may assume that an indigenous Sinai population may have played a role for the copper supply of Maadi - not only as traders of copper from Hujayrat but also as miners and traders of Sinai ore which could have been delivered to Maadi in exchange for agricultural products. The Egyptian finds from the nawami-tombs in the Southern Sinai are an important remainder of such connections. 52 Fig. 35: Maadi. Some pieces of blackish-greenish coppermanganese ore (?) next to a vessel imported from southern Palestine stored in the Maadi site museum. Unfortunately the ore was not available any more to investigate its provenance. Foto: E. Oren. the archaeological record. Intensive cultural interaction between Maadi and the two settlements Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan andTell Magass are demonstrated by recent excavations (Khalil & Schmidt 2009), e. g., by specific lithic tools like fan scrapers (Hikade 2009,237), a fragment of a “Libyan Vase”, trapezoid copper axes and mollusc artefacts (Müller-Neuhof et al. 2003, 2325).The exchanged materials, though, show a stronger tendency of exchange from the Levant into Lower Egypt and not the reverse. Shapes, sizes and weights of the ingots in Maadi, for instance, clearly correspond to the supraregional specific ingots and ingot moulds from Hujayrat and Magass (Pfeiffer 2009a). Unfortunately due to the looting of the Museum at Maadi in 2002 no analytical work could be performed of these ingots, nor could ores found at Maadi (Figure 35) be investigated. How this transfer of copper was organised, is difficult to determine, but both land routes and sea routes must be considered. Due to the archaeological remains along the Sinai Mediterranean “Way of Horus” this direct route is a probable feature. This is supported especially by the fact that the analysed samples from the Survey of Eliezer Oren match with the deposits of Faynan. Furthermore, since no evidence for copper smelting occurs at the sites B-50 and B51 in North Sinai, transport of ore and metal most probably from Faynan is clearly indicated. In addition to the “Way of Horus”, shipping along the Mediterranean coast is indicated by Maadian finds in coastal settlements and even abroad. In contrast, there is not yet any definitive 4 th millennium evidence for sea trade in the Red Sea, and despite 150 years of scientific research, Maadian pottery or other corresponding finds are completely missing in the Sinai Peninsula. Therefore, considering the probable provenance of copper and copper ore at Maadi, The import of copper and of copper ore to settlements from a number of different raw sources in a distance of more than 100 km seems to be a common organisational pattern of early (Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age I) metallurgical practices in the Old World. Analytical investigations of finds from Arslantepe indicated an import of copper ore from a number of different sources in Eastern Anatolia in the late 4th millennium BC, which were smelted for copper inside the settlements, and of final artefacts from the north-eastern part of Anatolia (Hauptmann et al. 2002). A similar situation was observed in the Copper Age site of Zambujal, Portugal, where copper and copper ore were imported from various copper sources in the Estremadura (Müller et al. 2007, 22f.) Acknowledgement Our sincere thanks go to Prof. Dr. El Aref from the Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza who generously supported this project under every aspect. We also greatfully acknowledge the help of Dr. Abdel Hamid el-Manawi from the same institute during the field work. Prof. Dr. HansGert Bachmann, Hanau (Germany) provided most valuable informations from his diary from 1972-1978 when he crossed the Sinai Peninsula together with the Rothenberg Expedition. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. Itzak Beit-Arieh, Tel Aviv University, who willingly handed over much material from his excavations in 1971-1982. We also received copper ore samples and some metal artefacts from Prof. Dr. Eliezer Oren, University of Beer Sheva, collected from archaeological sites in Northern Sinai, and from Dr. Castel, Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Cairo. We gratefully acknowledge the permission to use still unpublished material from the excavation of Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan, co-directed by Prof. Dr. Lutfi Khalil, University of Amman, and Prof. Dr. Klaus Schmidt, German Archaeological Institute, Berlin. We acknowledge the help of MA Stephen Merkel for helping in language problems. We appreciate very much comments and corrections from the anonymos reviewer of this study. Field surveys and analytical work was financially supported by the German Archaeological Institute, Kairo within the project “Cluster-research 2: Innovations: technical, social”. Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Bibliography Abdel-Motelib, A. 1987 Cupriferous sediments of West Central Sinai, Egypt. M.Sc., Geology Dept. Faculty of Science, Cairo University Egypt, 194p. 1996 Geological and mineralogical studies on some manganese occurrences, Egypt. 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Abbrevations ASAE AV Annales du servive des antiquités de l'Egypte Archäologische Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo Metalla (Bochum) 19.1/2, 2012, 3-59 Dr. Ali Abdel-Motelib, Geology Department, Faculty of Science Cairo University, Giza aliabdelmotelib@yahoo.com, awaelmanawi@yahoo.com Dr. Michael Bode, Prof. Dr. Andreas Hauptmann Deutsches Bergbau-Museum (DBM), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and Materials Sciences Hernerstraße 45, D – 44791 Bochum andreas.hauptmann@bergbaumuseum.de Dr. des. Kristina Pfeiffer German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Oriental-Department Podbielskiallee 69-71, D - 14195 Berlin kp@orient.dainst.de 59