Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Nubian Gold Mines
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to Fexingo History. I'm Lucas, and with me is Luna. We've spent a lot of time on Ramses' temples, his battles, his family — but today we're digging into what actually paid for all of it: gold. Specifically, the gold mines of Nubia. Luna: The thing that made Egypt rich. Lucas: Exactly. Egypt wasn't a major gold producer on its own — the Nile valley had some, but the real mother lode was in the Eastern Desert and Nubia, especially around Wadi Hammamat and deeper into Kush. Ramses inherited a gold-mining infrastructure that had been running for centuries, but he ramped it up to industrial scale. Lucas: We know from inscriptions at the Temple of Amun at Karnak that Ramses sent massive expeditions into the desert — sometimes thousands of men — to extract gold-bearing quartz. They'd crush the rock, wash it, and smelt it into ingots. The gold then flowed north to Per-Ramesses and Thebes. Luna: Who was doing the mining? Was it slaves? Lucas: Partly. The Egyptians used prisoners of war — Libyans, Shasu bedouin, captured Hittites — but also conscripted local Nubians, the Madjai. The Madjai had a complicated status: they served as police and soldiers in Egypt, but in the mines they were essentially forced labor. There's a famous papyrus from the reign of Ramses' father Seti I that describes using 'Madjai of the desert' to work the gold mines, and Ramses continued that. Lucas: Conditions were brutal. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing centuries later, describes how the miners worked in cramped tunnels by lamplight, overseen by Egyptian soldiers. The rock was heated with fire then doused with water to crack it — a technique called fire-setting. Men, women, even children were used. Luna: That sounds horrific. Lucas: It was. But the output was staggering. One expedition under Ramses brought back over 7,000 deben of gold — that's about 630 kilograms. To put that in perspective, a single deben of gold could buy a cow. So this was the equivalent of thousands of cattle. All that gold went straight into the state treasury and the temples. Lucas: And the temples were effectively banks. The largest beneficiary was the god Amun — his temple at Karnak owned land, employed thousands, and received a massive cut of the Nubian gold. Ramses himself made huge endowments of gold to the Amun cult, partly as a political move to keep the priesthood loyal. Luna: So gold wasn't just for bling — it was the economic backbone. Lucas: Absolutely. Gold paid for grain shipments during famines, funded diplomatic marriages — remember the Hittite princess Maathorneferure? Her dowry was partly paid in gold — and, of course, built those colossal statues we've talked about. The Abu Simbel temples alone would have consumed tons of gold for their decoration, though most of the surface gold was looted centuries ago. Lucas: There's a fascinating inscription at the Temple of Amada in Nubia that lists Ramses' gold as coming from 'the land of Kush, the wretched land.' That phrase 'wretched' is a standard Egyptian trope, but it also reveals how they viewed Nubia: a place to be exploited. Luna: Did the Nubians ever rebel against this? Lucas: They did. Ramses faced several uprisings in Nubia, and he sent his viceroy Setau — we talked about him in episode 32 — to crush them. But the gold was too important to let go. In fact, Ramses built a series of fortified temples along the Nile in Nubia — like Gerf Hussein and Wadi es-Sebua — partly to control the gold routes. Lucas: The logistical effort was immense. Expeditions needed water, food, tools, and guard forces. The Eastern Desert routes had fortified wells — like the one at Bir Umm Fawakhir — that were maintained by the state. Ramses' administration kept detailed records of how many men went out and how many returned. Luna: So this is a side of Ramses we don't usually think about: the CEO of a mining corporation. Lucas: Exactly. He was a warrior and a builder, but also an economic manager. Without the Nubian gold, there would have been no Ramesseum, no Great Temple at Abu Simbel, no massive chariot corps. The gold literally fueled the empire. And after Ramses' death, the mines began to decline — partly because the ore ran out in some areas, partly because Egypt's control over Nubia weakened. Lucas: But during his reign, the Nubian gold mines were one of the most productive in the ancient world. The Greek historian Agatharchides describes how the gold was transported in leather bags on donkey caravans, guarded by archers. It was a dangerous, costly operation — but the payoff was Egyptian supremacy for decades. Luna: And all that gold — where did it end up? Aside from temples. Lucas: Some was turned into jewelry and funerary equipment for the royal family. A lot was stored in the treasuries of Per-Ramesses and Thebes, essentially as a national reserve. Some was used in trade with the Aegean and the Near East — Egypt exported gold to Mycenaean Greece and the Hittites. But ultimately, a huge amount was buried in tombs, later looted and melted down. Lucas: There's a poignant record from the reign of Ramses' successor Merenptah, where the gold shipments from Nubia had already dropped by half. The era of easy gold was ending. But for Ramses, it was the foundation of his power. Luna: It makes you appreciate just how much organization went into every statue. Lucas: Right. Every ton of stone, every ounce of gold, every obelisk — it all depended on the miners sweating in the desert. So next time you see an image of Ramses' colossal statue, remember the people who dug the gold that paid for it. Lucas: That's it for today. Join us next time when we'll look at another overlooked aspect of Ramses' reign. I'm Lucas, this is Luna, and you're listening to Fexingo History.