Explore treasures

and the effects of the Eastern Egyptian Desert

Author's Name: Arthur Wigwell

It is strange that an inspector of antiquities of Upper Egypt, based in Luxor, was preoccupied with a subject other than his official field: research and preservation of antiquities. This young inspector, along with a number of friends, decided to travel throughout the Eastern Desert in 1906 and 1907 to examine and record all the archaeological sites and inscriptions, as well as visit gold prospecting sites, quarries, and ancient mines. He saw and recorded everything he saw, in addition to ruined water wells that had played a significant role in ancient times. This group of Englishmen rode camels and walked for hours on unpaved roads strewn with gravel and limestone. They set up tents and ate while sitting on the sand under the shade of desert trees. Like tamarisk, colocynth, and acacia, they shivered from the cold of desert nights inside their tents, or sweat poured from their bodies thanks to the merciless, chaste sun. They proved conclusively that our Eastern Desert is full of ancient monuments and precious treasures that have not been discovered or exploited until our present time, such as gold (in ancient times, Egypt was the richest country in the world in extracting gold), rare porphyry marble, precious stones, and various other minerals. They walked to the Red Sea coast, settled for several days in the only existing town at that time, Al-Qusayr, and participated in the fishing of cuttlefish. Our author had consulted many ancient records to complete his research, and he had examined in this regard what the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Persians and Romans had left us of their tireless and tireless activities to obtain those treasures that you will not find the like of except in the eastern Egyptian desert.