Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

For millennia, gold, electrum, and silver were the most admired and coveted metals in ancient Egypt, prized for their magnificent appearance and physical properties such as malleability and ductility. Initially, they were available as native metals, requiring no advanced smelting procedures for use and manipulation. As time progressed, sophisticated techniques were developed for mining and processing, particularly for creating specific alloys. Today, advanced scientific methods aid in our understanding of the diverse techniques anciently employed in working with gold and silver, illuminating their origins, exchange, and trade, as well as locations of production. These, in turn, give us insight into the genesis of technical innovations, the various chaînes opératoires and local workshop organizations, and the ways in which expertise and technology were transferred or passed down through generations and/or exchanged geographically between Egypt and its neighbors. Additionally, they can help us understand how foreign styles and techniques diffused into the Egyptian repertoire, were further developed, and were adapted to local needs and tastes, or vice versa. Scenes from Theban tombs and other sources provide particularly useful information about the mining and processing of these metals, as well as their exchange and trade, craftsmanship, usage, theft, and the high esteem in which they were held.