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Natural Resources
As well as benefiting from a rich agriculture,
Egypt provided its inhabitants with fine quality stone for building
monuments and carving statues and with supplies of gold from Nubia
and the Eastern Desert. Stone came from a variety of sources. White
limestone was carefully cut from special quarries such as Tura near
Memphis. This limestone was specially used to cover the walls of
temples and mastaba tombs as it was a good surface for bas-relief
carvings.
Yellow sandstone came from Gebel es-Silsila,
and red and yellow quartzite (often used for statuary) from Gebel
el-Ahmar. There was schist for statues from Wadi Hammamat; basalt
was favored for paving stones and lower courses in temples, while
statues and vases were produced in a variety of stone, including
diorite, porphyry, marble, and serpentine. Alabaster, used in
buildings and for small objects, was found in the Eastern Desert
where the main quarry was at Hat-nub, about twelve miles from Tell
el-Amarna (Akhetaten). Granite from the Aswan area provided material
for buildings, sarcophagi, and statuary. It occurred in a variety of
colors red, gray, black, and blue. Once it had been cut from the
rock (by a process that is still not fully explained), it was
transported by river downstream to the major building sites (the
capitals of Memphis or Thebes and elsewhere). The quarries (and
mines) were a royal monopoly. Some were situated in remote parts of
the desert. None was worked continuously; when the king decided that
he wished to build or adorn a temple, an expedition was organized
and dispatched to the quarry. Some of these were large operations on
the same scale as an army; they were in fact administered by the
army, although the government itself organized the workforce (which
consisted of craftsmen and forced labor raised from the peasantry)
and communications. Even by the New Kingdom their only tools were
copper or bronze (iron was not introduced into Egypt until the
period between 1000 and 600 BC). In earliest times only stone had
provided tools and weapons, including arrowheads, hammers, teeth of
sickles, and knives. Stone continued as the most important material
for these purposes for many years, and even in the Middle Kingdom,
it was retained, whenever appropriate, alongside metal. Flint was
the traditional stone used for many of these items. Some details of
the expeditions have survived in the inscriptions left by the
leaders in the quarries; they indicate that elaborate preparations
were undertaken and that final reports were written by scribes and
kept as temple archives in the “House of Life.” They also searched
in the deserts for the semiprecious stones used by the jewelers.
Some (turquoise, malachite, and emerald) came from the eastern
mines, while carnelian, amethyst, and jasper came from Nubia or the
Eastern Desert. Other natural stones included garnets, green
feldspar, and obsidian. The Egyptians also used calcite or rock
crystal backed with colored cements to produce artificial
substitutes. Lapis lazuli was imported from the region known today
as Afghanistan via the Euphrates River region. The Egyptians
regarded gold as one of their most precious substances, a divine
metal that ensured eternal life. Used for royal and noble burial
goods as well as for jewelry, gold also became a form of currency by
the New Kingdom. As wages were paid in kind, however, it never
gained widespread use throughout the society. Gold was found both in
Egypt and Nubia in the quartz present in the eastern and
southeastern mountains. Wadi Hammamat and the area to the east of
Edfu were both important gold working areas. The Royal Treasury
owned all the mines, and the mining expeditions were directed by
officers and soldiers; only state workers were allowed to mine and
handle the gold. Electrum, the natural alloy of gold and silver, was
found in Nubia but not in Egypt. Pure silver, regarded as a type of
gold, did not occur in Egypt and was imported from the north or
east. Following their conquests in Asia the Egyptians had greater
access to it, but silver never became as popular as gold. The
country was also not particularly rich in copper. In predynastic
times little use was made of it except for small decorative objects,
but by Dynasty 2 (c.2700 BC) copper was used for statues of kings
and gods. Gradually it became an increasingly popular metal in the
Old and Middle Kingdoms for objects such as weapons, tools for
carpentry and stoneworking, statuary, jewelry, mirrors, razors,
vases, and furniture fittings. From Dynasty 3, the Egyptians
exploited the copper mines in Sinai, where expeditions were sent for
turquoise and copper. These were soon worked out, however, and
copper was increasingly brought from Cyprus and Syria. Copper and
bronze ingots were imported into Egypt, and in c.2000 BC advanced
metalworking techniques were brought from Asia with the result that
bronze gradually replaced copper for all industrial uses. In
addition to a scarcity of metal ores, Egypt also lacked wood. This
affected the availability of fuel supplies and timber for doors,
coffins, boats, furniture, and statuary. From c.2700 BC cedarwood
was imported from Lebanon to be used for temple doors and flagpoles,
the best ships, and the finest coffins. Ebony was brought via Nubia
and used for inlay and fine furniture. Native woods included palm
trunks (beams were made of this), sycamore (used for making poorer
quality coffins and statues), and acacia (used for building river
barges). These, as well as willow and thorn trees, were also used in
the production of weapons, stelae, domestic furniture, and other
articles. Domestic fuel was scarce; either charcoal (allocated by
the government) or dried dung supplied most of their needs.
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Other
Topics About :
Geography of Ancient Egypt |
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