Das Goldland der Pharaonen: Die Entdeckung von Berenike Pancrisia.

• Author: SIDEBOTHAM, STEVEN E.
• Position: Review

Das Goldland der Pharaonen: Die Entdeckung von Berenike Pancrisia. By A. and A. CASTIGLIONI, J. VERCOUTTER, et al. Mainz: PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1998.

This volume, translated from Italian, presents the results of five expeditions to the Nubian (northeastern) Desert of Sudan between 1989 and 1994 by the Centro di Ricerche sul Deserto Orientale (Ce.R.D.O.). The Castiglioni brothers, founders of the Ce.R.D.O., are amateur enthusiasts who employ professional archaeologists and technicians and solid methodological techniques (including balloon photography and the global positioning system--GPS) to survey, excavate and record ancient and medieval gold-mining settlements and cemeteries in a region known in the pharaonic period as Wawat. Their survey has covered over ninety thousand square kilometers thus far, and they have located about two hundred sites; they estimate that there are an additional eighteen thousand sites to investigate. The book is not a final report, but is merely an installment of their on-going research.

A history of the region emphasizes gold mining from pharaonic times up to and including the British occupation and cites numerous pharaonic, classical Greek and Roman, medieval Arab, and modem European sources, Discussion of the medieval Arab sources is especially welcome to those familiar only with the ancient and modern European literature. The volume provides a good description of ancient gold-mining techniques from the beginning to the end of the process, based upon reports in ancient texts; this is accompanied by drawings illustrating the procedures.

There is extended travelogue-cum-anthropological discussion of the Bedja Bedouins of the region and the contention that they are the descendants of the Medjay and Blemmyes of antiquity. Scattered throughout the book are numerous "asides." These include discussion of the prehistory of Nubia; the rediscovery of Egypt and the gold of the pharaohs; Nubia and the gold mines of antiquity; Nubia, the Nile and the pharaohs; an overview of the five expeditions (with dates, distances traveled, areas investigated, and number of sites found); types of vehicles used by the expedition (and practical considerations for choosing tem); phases of gold mining; three ancient and medieval maps relating to the region and new technologies in archaeology.

The Castiglionis deem their most important discovery to be the location and identification of the impressive settlement of Berenike Pancrisia which...