195: A Quest for Gold

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.
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• 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.

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