Ancient Heliopolis under threat

Caesar Augustus sent the obelisks from Heliopolis to Alexandria, from where they were moved to Rome, Paris and New York. This was the beginning of the looting of the ancient site of Heliopolis, a process that has continued to this day.

By Monica Hanna

Heliopolis, the site of ancient Iunu or Biblical On, is the only Ancient Egyptian archaeological site still visible in Cairo. The site is located to the northeast of Cairo, in close vicinity to contemporary Heliopolis or Misr Al-Gadeeda. The site was the capital of the 13th nome of Lower Egypt and was famous for the temples of the gods Ra, Ra-Atum and Ra-Horakhty, which turned Heliopolis into a significant religious centre since the pre-dynastic period.

During the Ptolemaic period the sun-god Ra was referred to as helios (Greek for ‘sun’), thus the city was renamed Heliopolis or the “City of the Sun”; the modern Arabic name “Ain Shams” also is a derivation. The priesthood of the temple of the sun created the Heliopolitan cosmogony (a narration of the creation of the world) where the god Atum played the role of the creator. The site was thought to be where the benben primordial mound arose from the waters of Nu in the creation of the world. The benu (phoenix) bird and the Mneuvis bull were worshipped in the area as manifestations of Ra, and Hathor “Mistress of Hetpet” was worshipped as the female deity of the area.

The oldest cemetery found in the area dates to the period of Naqada I and II (4000-3000 BCE); the pottery recovered during the excavations can be compared to that found on sites of comparable date, like Maadi and Wadi Degla. The rest of the site has had features dating from the Third Dynasty (2649-2575 BCE) to the Late Period (712-332 BCE).

The most famous landmark currently remaining on the site is the Obelisk of Senusert I, from the Middle Kingdom (2010-1640 BCE) and other inscribed blocks and gates on the site of Arab El-Hisn dating to the Ramesside period (1307-1196 BCE).

Gold mining in ancient Egypt

The historical narrative of South Africa’s mining industry has been and, to a certain degree, continues to be dominated by the story of gold mining – and quite rightly so, considering the fact that it was the discovery and exploitation of gold, particularly on the Witwatersrand in the late 1880s, that largely fuelled the economic development of the country for the better part of a century.

Further, it was the mighty gold mining industry that had a significant influence in the shaping of South Africa’s socioeconomic and political structures in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Thus, it is appropriate that the historical narrative of the South African gold mining industry be dealt with in this column.

However, before turning attention to that subject, it is necessary to reflect on the broader history of gold mining. This, it is hoped, will go some way to explaining humanity’s obsession with the yellow metal and to revealing the central role that gold has played in every major society since the dawn of civilisation.

The history of gold is as old as that of man. There is no doubt that it was one of the first metals known to primitive man, as it exists in nature in an elemental state. Its association with primitive cultures is evidenced by the fact that crude ornaments of gold have been found among the remains of all prehistoric peoples.

However, the first people to use gold on a considerable scale were the ancient Egyptians. Archaeological evidence reveals that the yellow metal came into fairly extensive use during the predynastic period, that is, before 3100 BCE.

Although the origins of gold mining in predynastic Egypt are shrouded in mystery, it is likely that, during that period, the metal was extracted from alluvial deposits.

It was only with the advent of the early dynastic period, from 3100 BCE onwards, that gold began to be extracted by systematic mining. Some of the earliest mining operations were conducted in the granite mountains east of Coptos and further south, in Nubia, between the Nile and the Red Sea, during the early dynastic age.