In referring to records of the ancient gold-mines of Egypt, we find that
a mine existed in the Wadi Allaki, some days south of Komombo, in the
Bishari district. This mine was visited and identified by MM. Linant and
Bonomi; there they found an excavation 180 feet deep, handmills similar
to ours, and traces of about three hundred miners' huts, also several
Kufic inscriptions on a rock. The mines, Edrisi tells us, were twelve
days inland from Aydab. We must therefore look elsewhere for a notice of
another mine nearer the Red Sea. Edrisi makes two mentions of these mines
of Allaki, in one of which he says they are in a deep valley at the foot
of a mountain; in another he alludes to them as on an open plain. On
turning to Abu'lfida, we find him relating 'that Allaki is a town of
Bedja; the country of Bedja is in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea. One
finds there pearl-fisheries which do not give much profit, but in the
mountain of Allaki is a mine of gold, which covers the cost of working.
The mountain of Allaki is very celebrated.' Hence it would seem that two
different spots are alluded to both under the name of Allaki, from both
of which gold was obtained, one inland and one near the Red Sea.
Professor de Goeje, of Leyden, the greatest authority on early Arabian
literature, pointed out to my husband further discrepancies in the
distances from Aydab to the gold-mines of Allaki in early Arab
geographers, and suggests that the mines found by MM. Bonomi and Linant
and ours, though several hundred miles apart, may have belonged to the
same reef, and have been known by the same name.
In M. Chabas' 'Inscriptions des Mines d'Or' we have a very interesting
dissertation on an ancient Egyptian plan of a gold-mine on a papyrus in
the museum of Turin, of the time of Seti I., which he thus describes:
'Unfortunately, the name of the locality, which the plan gives us under
the form _Ti, ou, oi_, the phonetic signs of which form a confused
combination, does not give us any clue. We must therefore limit ourselves
to the conclusion that this map, the most ancient that exists in the
world, represents to us an auriferous vein in a desert mountain situated
to the east of Higher Egypt, and very near the Red Sea. The shells spread
on the path leading to it are a proof that the sea is very near; we can
only think of the Red Sea, the shores of which abound in coral, in
sponge, and shells variegated with the most beautiful colours.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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