195: A Quest for Gold

The History of Egypt Podcast

Dominic Perry

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sety in the Desert. Around 1300 BCE, King Sety led an expedition into the Red Sea hills. His purpose? Gold. The King brought soldiers and charioteers out to mine precious metals for his treasuries. The journey was difficult, traversing a dry and rocky landscape far from the comforts of home. Fortunately, Sety left detailed descriptions of the event; and art and artefacts from this era allow us to reconstruct the journey... Episode details: Logo image: Soldiers make camp, setting up tents for commanders. Tomb of Horemheb at Saqqara (Martin 2016). Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Music and interludes by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.net. Music and interludes by Luke Chaos www.chaosmusick.com. The Wadi Barramiya, in which Sety’s expedition travelled, by Hakatani Tenfu at Flickr.com. The Kanais Temple of Sety I, in the Wadi Barramiya, by Mutnedjmet at Flickr.com. Select bibliography: A. Dodson, Sethy I King of Egypt: His Life and Afterlife (Cairo, 2019). H. Gauthier, ‘Le temple de l’Ouâdi Mîyah (el Knaïs)’, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 17 (1920), 1--38. Available online. K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions Historical and Biographical, I (Oxford, 1975). R. Klemm and D. Klemm, Gold and Gold Mining in Ancient Egypt and Nubia: Geoarchaeology of the Ancient Gold Mining Sites in the Egyptian and Sudanese Eastern Deserts (Berlin, 2013). G. T. Martin, Tutankhamun’s Regent: Scenes and Texts from the Memphite Tomb of Horemheb (EES Excavation Memoir 111; London, 2016). C. D. Reader, A Gift of Geology: Ancient Egyptian Landscapes and Monuments (Cairo, 2022). R. D. Rothe et al., Pharaonic Inscriptions from the Southern Eastern Desert of Egypt (Winona Lake, 2008). B. M. Sampsell, The Geology of Egypt: A Traveler’s Handbook (Cairo, 2014). See website for complete listing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ancestry is marking Remembrance with free access to global military records until Wednesday.
0:06.0	Uncover your family stories of courage and resilience.
0:10.0	Simply register at Ancestry.co.uk with just your name and email.
0:16.0	No payment details needed for unlimited free searches of our vast collection of global military records.
0:23.4	This remembrance honour their memory with ancestry. Free Access ends 13th of November.
0:34.7	3,300 years ago, a caravan made its way through the desert.
0:41.5	They were walking east of the Nile, leaving the safety of the river valley and heading deep
0:47.2	into the mountains that stretch between the river and the Red Sea.
0:51.7	The caravan was populated by soldiers, who marched under the burning sun,
0:56.7	armed with bows, spears, swords, and shields. Some of them might have worn body armour,
1:03.1	most notably a cap made of cloth or leather over their head, and they likely strode these paths,
1:09.2	wearing sandals made of papyrus or leather.
1:12.6	This footwear was necessary, for the eastern deserts are not a soft, sandy expanse
1:18.8	like you might imagine from the Sahara.
1:21.6	Instead, they are rocky littered with small sharp stones that spread out across the waist. Over and atop these stones,
1:30.1	the tramp of thousands of feet would kick up clouds of dust. The soldiers probably marched
1:36.7	in groups of 50, and larger clusters of about 200 men, led by their officer called a standard bearer.
1:46.0	Transporting their supplies, the soldiers were accompanied by porters, and also by donkeys.
1:52.0	These animals, called A-a, an Egyptian, trod placidly behind their masters.
1:57.0	Their backs bent with large baskets or panniers, loaded with supplies, including food and
2:04.2	tools for the expedition ahead. There were no camels. Those would not appear in Egypt for centuries
2:10.9	yet. For the ancient Egyptian soldier, the donkey was the vehicle of choice. The soldiers and their animals marched along the roads.
	...

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