Tomb of 3400 yo gold workers found in the Sudan

Angela

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It doesn't sound as if they'll be able to get dna unfortunately. It would have been interesting to see if they could tell us something about the difference between perhaps the Egyptian overseers and the locals.

Poor Africa; always plundered for its raw materials.

See:
http://www.archaeology.org/news/5669-170619-sudan-gold-worker

"Live Science reports that a 3,400-year-old tomb on Sai Island in northern Sudan has been investigated by a team of scientists with the AcrossBorders archaeological research project. The tomb’s multiple chambers hold the remains of more than a dozen people who may have lived on the island and worked in its gold mines. In addition to the human remains, the team members found scarabs, ceramic vessels, a gold ring, and gold funerary masks. A shabti, or small stone sculpture, discovered in the tomb may have been intended to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Inscriptions on the artifacts indicate the tomb had been built for Khnummose, a master gold worker. Julia Budka of Ludwig-Maximillians University said that DNA analysis of the remains in the tomb could reveal any possible relationships between the tomb’s occupants. Tests could also reveal whether the bodies were mummified. Traces of bitumen, a type of petroleum used by the ancient Egyptians in the process of mummification, have been found, but the bodies and coffins are poorly preserved."
 
was it an Egyptian colony ?
or were they an undependent unity merely selling gold to the Egyptians ?
there certainly must have been a military force behind them to defend the mines environment
was the gold found in the nearby mountains or was it alluvial gold on the bottom of the Nile ?
it's more like an Indiana Jones story ..
 
was it an Egyptian colony ?
or were they an undependent unity merely selling gold to the Egyptians ?
there certainly must have been a military force behind them to defend the mines environment
was the gold found in the nearby mountains or was it alluvial gold on the bottom of the Nile ?
it's more like an Indiana Jones story ..

This article explains the context better:
https://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/06...ld-workers-tomb-excavated-on-island-in-sudan/

"According to Across Borders Egyptians built settlements and fortifications in the historic region known as Nubia, including Sai island where they constructed an outpost and a gold mine.[FONT=pt_serifregular]Dr. Nasr Salama, the Antiquities Ministry’s general manager of artifacts in Aswan and Nubia, told Mada Masr that “ancient Egypt’s commercial influence spread into the far south and east of what is modern-day Sudan. The New Kingdom’s commercial presence even extended into the land of Punt (around modern day Somalia).”[/FONT]
[FONT=pt_serifregular]Salama added that, unlike modern day territorial divides, “There was no real distinction between Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia.”[/FONT]
[FONT=pt_serifregular]He added that ancient Egyptians invested heavily in mining and quarrying, in search of gold, silver, copper, iron, precious stones and salt, alongside other minerals and natural resource, leading expeditions stretching from modern-day Syria to Somalia."


The excavation is on Sai Island in the Sudan:
http://www.bsr.ac.uk/research/archaeology/geophysics-2/projects/sai-island-sudan

"
[FONT=ff_super_grotesk]At the end of the second intermediate period (1650-1550 BC), Lower Nubia was for the most part pacified, but Sai Island remained inhabited by a Kerman community which had been living on the island for a millennium (Doyen 2009: 17). However, under Ahmose, the founder of the New Kingdom, Sai fell under Egyptian control and a fortified town was founded with a temple dedicated to the god Amun was constructed, effectively ending Kerma’s control of the island (Doyen 2009: 17; Geus 2004: 114)."[/FONT][/FONT]
 
so after the expulsion of the Hyksos and the reconquest of the Nile Delta, Ahmose also conquered the Sai goldmines
it's a huge stretch to controll, from Sai Island till the Nile Delta,
but before the bronze age collapse Egypt was well known for its vast resources of both copper and gold, it was the base of their unlimited wealth and power
 
so after the expulsion of the Hyksos and the reconquest of the Nile Delta, Ahmose also conquered the Sai goldmines
it's a huge stretch to controll, from Sai Island till the Nile Delta,
but before the bronze age collapse Egypt was well known for its vast resources of both copper and gold, it was the base of their unlimited wealth and power

I thought perhaps you had been thinking along these lines.

From the paper:
"High population density can facilitate technical innovation, and populations in more advantageous areas that sustained higher densities might have led to the later improvement in subsistence technologies50. Moreover, in modern-day hunter-gatherers a larger population relative to ecological productivity is positively correlated to complex behaviors such as sedentism, storage activity and social stratification51."

You see, I don't forget any of your comments or speculations! :)
 

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