A OPEN PIT MINING AÇIK OCAK MADENCİLİĞİ

M. Coli, M. Baldi
The granite was cut by means of lines of
close spaced large wedge shaped holes into
which were hammered iron wedges to split
the rock into blocks Boulders and blocks
were sized to the final shape, but not
finished.
4.3.3 - Use
This granite was used by the Romans in the I
and II centuries only for columns and pillars
and for tiles, and can be found in Rome,
Verona, Venice (St. Mark’s Basilica),
Pompeii, Herculaneum, Leptis Magna,
Apollonia, Tyre (Borghini, 1989; Lazzarini,
2002).
The buildings of the local settlements are
made by cobblestone and small boulders
(“collection and use”, Coli & Marino, 2008)
of the local granite debris and regolite which
were abundantly lying on the neighbouring
ground. From our field observations it
appears that this granite was used locally by
the Romans/Byzantine for special structural
purposes like bars, tiles, lintels, jambs.
4.4 “Serpentina Muschinata”
In a tributary of the Wadi Umm Esh, close to
its confluence with the Wadi Atallah, the
Romans opened a quarry in the local
serpentine, the ornamental stone that is also
known as “Marmo verde ranocchia” or Lapis
Batrachites (Borghini, 1989; Lazzarini,
2002)
(http://www.musnaf.unisi.it/dettagliomarmi.
asp?param=2&idnazione=5&id=1765).
The Serpentina Moschinata was commonly
used from the Predynastic period to the New
Kingdom and perhaps was partially used
during the Ptolemaic period, too (Aston et
al., 2000).
The Romans used this ornamental stone
for tiles (Baia, Pompeii, Herculaneum,
Rome, Leptis Magna, Cyrene, Cos) and for
small statues (Borghini, 1989; Lazzarini,
2002).
4.4.1 - Geology
This serpentine was part of the Ophiolite
suite of the basement core complex. Two
varieties of this serpentine were quarried
(Aston et al., 2000): variety 1 is grayish to
greenish with black veins or patches, it is
mainly a fine grained antigorite with rare
chrisotile, lizardite and scattered veins of
dolomite, plus accessory minerals
(magnetite, talc and tremolite). Variety 2 is
mostly black and speckled with grey and
brown grains with a matrix of antigorite in
mesh structure with iron oxide grains
resembling olivine crystals and scattered
pseudomorphs of pyroxenes. Black veins of
magnetite are particularly evident.
4.4.2 - Quarrying
Brown & Harrell (1995) report a partial
destruction of the quarry due to a recent
quarrying activity, but the scarce remains of
Roman buildings are still present.
5 SETTLEMENTS
Along the whole Wadi Hammamat area there
are remains of settlements connected with
quarries and mines, the settlement housed
the people and were also the places where
the gold-ore was worked.
Ruins of little settlements are close to the
Bekhen-stone and “Serpentina Moschinata”
quarries, ruins of several little settlements
are preserved in the Wadi Atallah and Wadi
el Sid, close to mine and quarry sites. The
main settlement was Bir Umm Fawakhir
(Meyer, 1997, 1998; Meyer et al., 2000,
2011).
According with Meyer (1997, 1998) these
settlements housed about one thousand
people in Byzantine times, mainly
administrative staff and career miners with
their entire families (Meyer et al., 2003).
Generally speaking, we want to highlight
that also in the most remote quarry sites of
the Eastern Desert the Romans had a high
living standard (Van der Veen, 1997; Meyer
et al., 2003).
The settlement buildings are reduced to a
few basements of huts made up in stackedstone
cobblestone and small boulders of the
local granite, at Bir Umm Fawakhir there are
also the remains of some working tools
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