Reverse-engineering the desertscape:seeing under the hands of ancient Egyptian prospectors. M. Odler

Recording of the talk given by Dr Martin Odler (Newcastle University) at the conference ‘Place-making in the desertscape: the socialisation of the Egyptian-Sudanese Eastern Desert landscape in the longue durée (4th millennium BCE- 4th century CE)’ organised by Dr Cristina Alù at PCMA and IFAO in April 2024. The unpublished material is now covered in the open access paper https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.70008 and another article, https://doi.org/10.1553/AEundL34s419.

Abstract (authors Martin Odler, Jiří Kmošek - Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; Academy of Science, Czechia):
For Egyptologists, quite often, the initial evidence to be considered on expeditions are the inscriptions. And if they do not mention a particular phenomenon, its existence is doubted. E.g., since the Sinai inscriptions focus on turquoise, interest in copper is sometimes seriously doubted. (Not only) French and Egyptian archaeological discoveries on the Sinai Peninsula, of copper mining and processing sites point out to the omissions in the textual evidence.
But that is not the end of the story. Back in the Nile Valley, copper was turned into metal artefacts. In the past decade, authors of this paper studied a large number of the metalworking remains recently excavated in Egypt, covering almost all chronological parts of the Bronze Age, e.g. the contexts from the Elephantine, Giza, Tell el-Retaba, and Abusir, being supported by the action spécifique 19463 at the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire. Additionally, comparative material from the collections outside of Egypt was engaged in the program, giving further levels of data understanding.
After thousands of pXRF spectra produced, tens of metallographic thin sections studied further, a much more complex and nuanced picture of the ancient Egyptian copper metallurgy emerged. This allows us not only identification of tentative ore provenance. We can reverse engineer the modus operandi of the prospectors and metalworkers in the desert, not only of ancient Egyptians, but also local populations likely involved. Only bits of minerals ended up at the sites in the Nile Valley, but these are remains of the wide range of material procured in the desertscapes. The rich desertscapes offered a lot, and the prospectors reciprocally tried to use as much as manageable. I.e., the materials were not limited to gold and copper ore solely and can inform the future surveys of the Eastern Desert and Sinai on the less conspicuous components of chaînes opératoires.