Gold Technology in Ancient EgyptMASTERY OF METAL WORKING METHODS

T. G. H. JamesThe British Museum, London

The peculiar qualities of gold that have made it sovaluable a material in industry and art were appre-ciated by the ancient Egyptians from the earliesthistorical times. In tombs of the First Dynasty, whichmay be dated to at least 3000 B.C., objects, or partsof objects, have been found, either made whollyof gold or embellished in part with gold. Already atthis early period gold wire of a kind was used, andbeaten gold was employed to sheath small objectsand, as foil, to cover the tops of small vessels. Themastery of techniques indicated by the scantyremains found in the much plundered tombs of thisand later periods reveals the extent to which Egyptiansunderstood the possible uses of gold. This masteryreceived its greatest demonstration for modernobservers, however, in the tomb equipment found inthe burial of King Tutankhamun who died in about1352 B.C.

Gold dominates the impression created by theobjects from this tomb, but the actual quantity of goldused is undoubtedly far less than the impressionsuggests. Some of the objects are made of solid gold,such as the innermost coffin which weighs about 110kilograms, but the majority of `golden objects aregilded only, either with gold foil or with gold leaf.Nevertheless, the contents of the tomb provide awonderful field for the study of gold technology in

the ancient world — a field which so far has not beenproperly exploited. Not only is the quantity ofmaterial large and varied, but it belongs to a periodwhen gold was particularly employed by theEgyptians, when one foreign ruler, writing to theKing of Egypt, declared his belief that gold was ascommon as dust in Egypt.

Most of the gold used in Egypt in antiquity wasobtained from the mountainous region which laybetween the Nile and the Red Sea. The area ex-ploited by the Egyptians stretched for about fivehundred miles from approximately the latitude ofthe modern town of Quft southwards, deep into whatis now the Northern Sudan. Metal from the northern,central and southern parts of this area was called`Gold of Coptos', `Gold of Wawat', and `Gold ofKush'. Ancient inscriptions record the annualproduction of these districts in a few instances, and itwould seem that the mines of the Wawat region wereby far the most profitable. But not sufficient detailshave survived to allow any satisfactory record ofproduction to be compiled.

Gold was retrieved both from alluvial deposits andfrom quartz rock. Modern surveys in the EasternDesert of Egypt and the Northern Sudan have dis

-covered considerable traces of ancient exploitation ofalluvial sands and gravels, and it is probable that in

Fifty years ago LordCarnarvon and Howard Carterdiscovered the tomb ofTutankhamun in the Valleyof the Kings oil the west bankof the Nile some 450 milessouth of Cairo. The wealthand magnificence of the goldand gold-clad objects found inthis almost undisturbed royalburial revealed not only theirgrace and beauty but also thehigh level of skill and crafts-inauship in the working ofgold that had been attained byEgyptian metal workers wellover 3,000 years ago. This isthe innermost coffin ofTutankhainun, preserved inthe Cairo Museum. It weighs110 kilograms, and is made ofsolid beaten gold 2: to 3 milli

-metres in thickness.Photograph by Peter Clayton

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The exhibition of the treasures from the tomb ofTutankhamun which opened at the British Museum at theend of last month clearly demonstrates the extent to whichthe Egyptians understood the possible uses of gold. Thefunerary mask of Tutankhamun, who died in about 1352B.C., forms the focal point of the exhibition. It is made ofbeaten and burnished gold inlaid with semi-precious stonesand coloured glass pastes. On the forehead, cast by the lostwax process, are the solid gold insignia of the vulturegoddess Nekhbet and the uraeus or cobra Buto.

Photograph by Peter Clayton

the earliest periods most of the gold used in Egyptderived from these easily worked deposits. What isnot evident from the sites of ancient workings iswhere the necessary washing took place. Water is arare commodity in the Eastern Desert, and it cannotbe assumed that sufficient quantities could have beentransported to the workings. The only practicablesolution open to the ancient Egyptians was to carrythe gold-bearing gravel to the nearest abundantsupply of water, which was the River Nile. In manyplaces the distance from deposit to river is betweenfifty and one hundred miles, and the only efficient

method of transport was by donkey. It is, however,wholly consistent with the Egyptian attitude towardstechnical activities that such laborious journeyswould have been accepted readily as a necessary partof the overall process of obtaining the precious metal.

A large number of ancient workings in gold-bearingquartz veins have been identified in the EasternDesert, and some mines reach a depth of threehundred feet or more. No ancient Egyptian recordsdescribe the way in which gold was extracted but anaccount written by Agatharchides, a Greek writer wholived in the second century B.C., preserved at second-

The melting, casting, and working of gold are well, Illustrated in a relief fron the tomb of Mereruka datingfrom about 2300 B.C.,, at Saqqara. The upper register shows first the metal being weighed out and checkedby a scribe, six men using blowpipes on a charcoal-fired melting furnace, the pouring of the molten metalinto a flat mould and then the beating of the ingot into sheet, Using stones held in the hand. The centre,band shows some of the types of ornaments made, while the lower part of the relief shows two men finishinga collar and then dwarfs working on elaborate pieces of jewellery1

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hand, gives a description of the methods used inEgyptian mines in later times. The rock was firstbroken up by the use of fire and hammers; it was thencrushed in mortars into small pieces, and finallyground to powder. This powder was washed on asloping surface, and the gold dust thus recovered wasfused in crucibles into small nuggets. Archaeologicalevidence suggests that only some of these processeswere carried out at the mining site. Possibly the rockwas reduced to the powder state there, while thewashing and fusing took place at special stations on thebanks of the Nile.

There is no evidence that the Egyptians used anytechnique for refining the gold they acquired fromtheir mines and alluvial deposits. In consequence,analyses of gold used in Egypt in antiquity reveal awide range of impurities, and inevitably the colourof ancient gold varies considerably. Most of thesecolour variations are fortuitous, due to the presenceof other metals, for example, silver or copper; butone attractive variant, gold with a rose-pink surfacefilm, seems possibly to have been deliberately manu-

At a very early period Egyptian gold workersdiscovered that gold could be hammered into thinsheets and that by this means they could use it notonly more economically but also with greatereffect. Frequently the wooden structures on whichgold sheets were to be fastened were first carvedwith texts and designs. The gold sheets were thenbeaten in position, so receiving raised impressionsof the texts and decorations. When gold leaf wasused, it was applied to the decorated woodensurface over a layer of fine plaster. This exampleof gilded wood is a shrine from the Tutankhamuntomb, guarded on each of its four sides by agoddess, in this illustration the goddess Isis.

Photograph by Peter Clayton

factured, although no wholly satisfactoryexplanation has yet been proposed for thetechnique used to produce it. Gold objectswith this rose-pink colour are almost all ofroyal ownership. For most purposes goldwas used as it came, its colour would varyfrom batch to batch, and only a little troublewas taken to match colour over a large pieceof work. Scenes of gold delivery from Kushshow that it was made into hollow rings fortransport. In this form it was handed overto the gold workers in royal and templeworkshops to be used for the many purposesfor which it was required.

It has been stated that Egyptian goldworkers developed most of the techniquesemployed by modern craftsmen, and indeedsurviving artefacts tend to confirm this claim.At a very early period craftsmen dis-

covered that gold could be hammered and that by sodoing they could use it not only more economically,but also with greater aesthetic effect. The gildedequipment found in the tomb of Queen Hetepheres,the mother of Cheops, the builder of the GreatPyramid, demonstrates strikingly how successfullygoldsmiths had mastered the technique of sheath-ing with gold as early as 2600 B.C. Among thetomb furniture was a bed canopy, the frameworkof which consisted of four corner-posts of rect-angular section, ten side poles of circular section,five roofing poles of circular section, three base boardsof rectangular section, and four frame boards of rect-angular section joining the corner posts at the top. Allthese members were between 2.20 metres and 3.20metres in length, and consisted of wooden corescovered with fairly heavy gold sheeting. In most casessingle sheets of gold were used to cover each member,small gold tacks being employed to fasten the gold inposition. In the cases of the corner-posts the golddisplayed inscriptions and decorations which wereobtained by beating the sheeting on to the wooden

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cores which had first been carved with the desiredtexts and patterns.

The use of heavy gold sheeting remained a favouritemethod of gilding throughout Egyptian history, andit must be suspected that the extravagance of themethod was partly responsible for its continuedemployment. Conspicuous display was a characteris-tic of Egyptian royal behaviour. The Egyptiancraftsmen, however, had early on discovered thatequally satisfactory results could be obtained byusing much thinner foil and even gold leaf. Thefoil or leaf was rarely applied directly to the object tobe gilded. First of all the object was covered with athin layer of specially fine plaster, and the gold thenplaced in position with the help of some kind ofadhesive, the nature of which has not been established.

Scenes of the beating of gold are to be found inseveral Egyptian tombs, and modern gold-beatershave declared that the attitudes adopted by thebeaters and the nature of the anvil and hammer usedsuggest that the ancient beating technique was verysimilar to that used in Europe since at least mediaevaltimes. Furthermore, the examination of examples ofgilding with leaf have shown that the size of theleaves used was virtually the same as that employedtoday, and that the thickness of the finest ancient leafis scarcely greater than standard leaf thicknessesobtained by modern beaters. There is no evidence tosuggest that the Egyptians made a terminologicaldistinction between gold leaf and gold foil, but it isprobable that specially skilled beaters were used toproduce the former.

Gilding by leaf was used not only for woodenobjects, but also for metal objects and even for theillumination of painted scenes on papyrus. Not agreat many examples of this last use have survived,but a particularly happy one can be found on afunerary payprus in the British Museum, prepared for

a certain Neferronpet, who lived about 1300 B.C.His title is given as `chief of the makers of thin gold',and it may be surmised that he was able to make useof his special position to have gold used in thevignettes of his papyrus. Much of the gold is lost,but a laboratory examination of the survivingfragments has showed that the thickness of the leafused was about 6 microns or 0.006 mm.

The skill of Egyptian goldsmiths is best revealed inEgyptian jewellery, a field in which technical prodigieswere accomplished. Among the most effectivetechniques practised from about 2000 B.C. (if notearlier) was cloisonné work. Most elaborate designsbuilt up of small pieces of glass, semi-precious stonesand faience, fitted into gold cloisons, were carried outwith absolute technical confidence. The cloisonswere made of small strips of gold sheet fitted to abase-plate either by colloid hard soldering or by softsoldering. In the latter method an alloy of gold oflower melting point was used with a flux which mayhave been natron, a naturally occurring materialconsisting chiefly of sodium carbonate and sodiumbicarbonate.

Open furnaces fired with charcoal and intensifiedby foot-operated bellows or by blow-pipe, werecommonly employed in working gold; many tombscenes depict craftsmen engaged in the processes ofjewellery making. The inlays in cloisonné jewellerywere fastened in place by a cement-like paste. Sofar it has not been convincingly established that trueenamel was produced in Egyptian cloisonné work.

Small elements in jewellery were made either bycasting or by the use of moulds. Casting was effectedin the case of small modelled objects by the lost-waxprocess, although the somewhat fussy technique wasnot used for most simple objects. Many gold beadsand decorative elements in elaborate jewellery weremade from gold foil. For these open stone moulds

A pair of bracelets belongingto Rameses II, who becameking about fifty years afterthe death of Tutankhamun.The decoration of the braceletsis most skilfully achieved, withgranules and plain, beaded,and twisted wires solderedinto position, most probablyby the colloidal process. Thistechnique involved coatingthe parts with ground coppercarbonate mixed with glue.On heating on a charcoalfurnace with a blowpipe thecopper carbonate was reducedto metal and a thin layer ofcopper-gold alloy was formed,giving a bonded joint.Photograph by courtesy of Thames& Hudson Ltd

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Small objects were produced by the well-known lost waxprocess of casting. This tiny statuette of Tutankhamun,only two inches in height, is cast in solid gold. It was foundin a nest of small coffins in the tomb.

Photograph by F. L. Kenett, (c George Rainbird Ltd

were employed, the gold foil being beaten into thedesigns cut in the moulds to obtain the necessaryshape, and then fitted with a flat back-plate which wassoldered into position. Gold wire, which was alsocommonly used, may have been manufactured bythe drawn process, although this has not been estab-

lished for most periods of Egyptian antiquity. Ingeneral, wire was probably mostly made from rollingthin strips of gold sheet.

At the height of Egyptian craftsmanship in theperiod which includes the reign of Tutankhamun(about 1500 to 1300 B.C.), jewellers embellishedtheir work with gold granulation. The granules werevery fine, but not quite as remarkable as those madeby Etruscan jewellers at a somewhat later date. Thegranules were probably made by cutting up goldwire into small pieces which were then heated androlled between two flat surfaces.

The considerable quantities of gold used by theancient Egyptians provide the impression that atmost periods large supplies were available. It shouldbe remembered, however, that gold was mined as aroyal monopoly and only small quantities would havecome into the hands of private persons in the normalway. Most gold therefore was concentrated in royalpossession and in the treasuries of the temples. Itis also probable that much gold was used time andagain in antiquity. Kings had no scruple aboutstripping the work of their predecessors, and muchgold was used for architectural decoration. Further-more, the craft of tomb-robbing was highly developed,and it may be supposed that the gold in most tombswas returned to circulation through unorthodoxchannels within a relatively short time after burialswere made. Even in periods when Egyptian royaltywas weak, Egyptian goldsmiths had material to workon, but their greatest achievements were alwaysmade when gold was most plentiful. The treasuresfrom the Tomb of Tutankhamun demonstrate thisfact overwhelmingly; it is a remarkable piece of goodfortune that this tomb was never completely strippedby the ancient tomb robbers.

Among the jewels of thePrincess Kbnnmet (c. 1875B.C.) found in her tomb atDalishur were a number ofexamples of superb crafts-manship. This circlet, pre-served in the Cairo Museum,is made of gold wire, to whichare soldered dozens of littlegold flowers with carneliancentres and turquoise petals,the frail structure being rein-forced at six points by a largecruciform ornament, again ingold inlaid with semi-preciousstories. The wire was made byrolling very narrow strips ofgold cut from thin sheet.Photograph by courtesy of Thames& Hudson Ltd

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