mummifi cation, was obtained from Wadi an-Natrūn, Be-
heira Governorate, and the Elkab region in Upper Egypt.
THE MIDDLE EAST
BY LYN GREEN
Salt was one of the most ubiquitous substances used by an-
cient peoples, but relatively little is known about how they
extracted it. Th e Phoenicians were famous traders and pro-
ducers of salt, which they probably got by evaporating sea-
water. In fact, all the cultures of the ancient Near East would
have relied on surface salt left in salt pans by the evaporation
of ancient seas rather than on labor-intensive mining. Many
of the earliest minerals and metals to be used and exploited
were also those that could be found literally lying around. For
example, some of the earliest copper was obtained from mal-
achite or other copper-rich rocks that lay on the surface. Th e
green color of these rocks (which comes from the oxidized
copper in them) would make them easy to spot.
Similarly, red or yellow stains on rocks show the presence
of iron oxide and would have signaled to ancient prospectors
that iron was at hand. Iron, however, was far harder to fi nd on
the surface than copper, and some scholars have speculated
that early peoples fi rst made use of the iron that they found in
meteorites. Occasionally, lead could be found on the surface.
For example, beads of lead dating to around 6000 b.c.e. have
been found at a Neolithic site in Turkey. Th ere were also places
where bitumen and other petroleum products rose naturally
to the surface of the earth. Ancient Sumerians used bitumen
in place of mortar between bricks, made boats watertight with
it, and even inlaid it in jewelry and furniture as decoration.
Bitumen sealing was found on the oldest-known boat in the
world, discovered in Kuwait and dating back 7,000 years. Th e
Sumerians apparently also made use of the petroleum prod-
ucts they found on the surface as fuels in the crucibles and
furnaces they used to extract metals from ore.
Once surface deposits of such metals as gold, copper,
iron, and lead were exhausted, ancient Near Easterners hadStone panel from the palace of Sennacherib, Nineveh, northern Iraq (Neo-Assyrian, ca. 704–681 b.c.e.); together with a companion panel, it shows
the transport of a winged bull from quarry to palace, part of Sennacherib’s construction work. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)
744 mining, quarrying, and salt making: The Middle East