3,000-Year-Old Gold Mine

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient Egyptian gold mine in the Sukari Mountains. The gold enticed the creation of a gold-mining camp 3,000 years ago. The multi-year archaeological project didn’t stop at finding the site.

This robust gold mine meant a mining camp was created around it. When it was found, the ancient camp was moved about two miles away so it wouldn’t interfere with the modern Sukari Mine.

The remains of the ancient processing complex included a facility for extracting gold from quarts veins, grinding and crushing stations, filtration and sediment basins, and clay furnaces to smelt the gold into a pure product. It indicated a highly orchestrated mining operation.

The gold miners developed an entire residential district on the site, which included houses, workshops, temples, administrative buildings, and bathhouses. Architectural remains from both the Roman and Islamic periods were found. Evidence shows that this space was used well after its creation.

The find expands our understanding of ancient Egyptian mining techniques and adds insight into the social, religious, and economic lives of the gold miners.

Artifacts found on the site include 628 pieces of broken pottery. Many of these were inscribed with hieroglyphic, ancient Egyptian cursive, and Greek scripts, showing a linguistic diversity in the region.

Other finds included bronze coins, terracotta figurines, small stone statues of deities, pottery vessels that held such items as medicines and incense, beads made of semi-precious stones, decorative items made from seashells, and five Ptolemaic offering tables.

Crews built a full-scale replica of the mining complex on 6.3 acres located approximately 2 miles from the active mine. This center includes exhibits and lots of information about the site and the life of ancient Egyptian gold miners.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archaeologists-discovered-a-3-000-year-old-egyptian-gold-mine-and-another-world-around-it/ar-AA1Rcq0v?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6927488fa04e4b7fb9572d1e90909288&ei=23

Municipality of Anchorage

It isn’t just a city, it includes suburbs, the urban core, a joint military base and most of Chugach State Park. It is the 4th largest city in the US by area, and larger than Rhode Island.

In 1867, US Secretary of State William Seward brokered a deal tp purchase Alaska from Russia for $7,200,00, about 2 cents an acre. The idea was lampooned by his political rivals, but in 1888, gold was discovered along Turnagain Arm, just south of modern-day Anchorage.

Alaska became a US territory in 1912. Anchorage started as neither a fishing nor mining camp.

There were a number of indigenous settlements along the Knik Inlet (north of Anchorage) for years. By 1911, the families of ‘Bud’ Whitney and Jim St Clair lived at the mouth of Ship Creek (on the south side of the Knik Inlet). There were joined there in 1912 by Jack and Nellie Brown.

In 1914, the Alaska Engineering Commission chose a site near the mouth of Ship Creek for a railroad construction port. The area quickly became a tent city, while a townsite was mapped out on higher ground to the south. Anchorage was incorporated on November 23, 1920.

On March 27, 1964, an earthquake of magnitude 9.2 struck Anchorage, killing 115 people and causing $116 million in damages. It was the world’s 2nd largest earthquake in recorded history. Because much of the city was built atop glacial silt, there was much soil liquefaction, leading to massive cracks in roads and the collapse of large swaths of land. Dozens of house that were originally 250 to 300 feet above sea level sank with the land they sat on, coming to a rest at sea level.

Although there have been many attempts to move the capitol to Anchorage or to a location closer to Anchorage, they have all ultimately been defeated. Even so, Anchorage has over twice as many state employees as Juneau, and is to a considerable extent the center of state and federal government activity in Alaska.

Cities often grow where they have easy access to trade routes, whether by water or land. Even Anchorage follows that stereotype, starting where an ocean inlet gave access to a creek from inland. And it continued by becoming a railroad hub, making (rail)roads where there hadn’t been any before. It currently has an international airport, which is fitting, since it is only 9.5 hours or less to most large cities in industrial countries.

We didn’t get to Anchorage when we went to Alaska; we took a cruise, and it didn’t go that far north. We may have to try again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorage,_Alaska