In my volume on “The Gold–Mines of Midian,” the popular Hebrew sources of information—the Old Testament and the Talmud—were ransacked for the benefit of the reader. It now remains to consult the Egyptian papyri and the pages of the mediæval Arab geographers: extracts from the latter were made for me, in my absence from England, by the well-known Arabist, the Rev. G. Percy Badger.44 I will begin with the beginning.
Dr. Heinrich Brugsch–Bey, whose “History of Egypt”45 is the latest and best gift to Egyptologists, kindly drew my attention to an interesting passage in his work, and was good enough to copy for me the source of his information, tile Harris Papyrus (No. 1) in the British Museum.
The first king of the twentieth Dynasty, born about B.C. 1200, and residing at Thebes, was Rameses III., whose title, Ramessu pa-Nuter (or Nuti), “Ramses the god,” became in the hands of the Greeks Rhampsinitos. This great prince, ascending the throne in evil days, applied himself at once to the internal and external economy of his realm; he restored the caste-divisions, and carried fire and sword into the lands of his enemies. He transported many captives to Egypt; fortified his eastern frontier; and built, in the Gulf of Suez, a fleet of large and small ships, in order to traffic with Pun and the “Holy Land,”46 and to open communication with the “Incense-country” and with the wealthy shores of the Indian Ocean.
“Not less important,” says our author (p. 594), “for Egypt, which required before all things the copper applied to every branch of her industry, was the sending of commissioners, by land (on donkey back!) and by sea, to explore and exploit the rich cupriferous deposits of ‘Atháka (in the neighbourhood of the ‘Akabah Gulf?). This metal, with the glance of gold, was there cast in brick-shape, and was transported by sea to the capital.
“The king also restored his attention to the treasures of the Sinaitic Peninsula, which had excited the concupiscence of the Egyptians since the days of King Senoferu47 (B.C. 3700). Loaded with rich presents for the sanctuary of the goddess Hathor, the protectress of Mafka-land, chosen employés were despatched on a royal commission to the peninsula, for the purpose of supplying the Pharaoh’s treasury with the highly prized blue-green copper-stones (Mafka, Turkisen?48).”
These lines were published by Dr. Brugsch–Bey before he had heard of my discoveries of metals and of a modern turquoise-digging in the Land of Midian. He had decided that “‘Atháka” lay to the east of Suez, chiefly from the insistence laid upon the shipping; sea-going craft would certainly not be required for a sail of three or four hours. Moreover, as I have elsewhere shown, Jebel ‘Atakáh, the “Mountain of Deliverance,” at the mouth of the Wady Musá, was referred to the Jews at some time after the Christian era, and probably during the fourth and fifth centuries, when pilgrimages to the apocryphal Mounts Sinai became the fashion.
During the summer of 1877, Dr. Brugsch–Bey was kind enough to copy and to translate the original document, upon which he founded his short account of the “‘Atháka” copper-mines. I offer it to the reader in full.
The order of the alphabet is that adopted by Dr. Brugsch–Bey. It relies for the first letter upon the authority of Plutarch, who asserts that the Egyptian abecedarium numbered the square of five (twenty-five); and that it opened with —[Greek]—, which also expresses the god Thoth;—this is the case with —[hieroglyph]— the leaf of some water-plant. The sequence of the letters has been suggested by a number of minor considerations: we begin with the vowels, and proceed to the labial, the liquids, and so forth.49
The sense of the highly interesting inscription, in its English order, would be:—
“I have sent my commissioners to the land ‘Atháka; to the (those)50 great mines of copper (or coppers)51 which are in this place (‘Atháka); and their (i.e. the commissioners’) ships52 were loaded, carrying them (the metals); while other (commissioners were sent and) marched on their asses. No! one never (ter-tot) had heard, since the (days of the olden) kings, that these (copper) mines had been found.53 The loads (i.e. of the ships and the asses) carried copper; the loads were by myriads for their ships, which went thence (i.e. from the mines) to Egypt. (After) happily arriving, the loads were landed, according to royal order, under the Pavilion,54 in form of copper-bricks;55 they were numerous as frogs (in the marsh),56 and in quality they were gold (Nub) of the third degree.57 I made them admired (by) all the world as marvellous things.”