Archaeologists from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in conjunction with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, have been excavating the Roman site of Sikait in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.
The area was known in Antiquity as “Mons Smaragdus”, given that it was the only place within the Roman Empire where emeralds could be found.
The study suggests that the mines remained active under the control of the Blemmyes nomadic tribes as early as the 4th century AD and focuses on how emeralds were extracted and commercialised in Antiquity, in addition to the documented funerary rites, the social organisation of the inhabitants and workers, the typology of the mines as well as details on extraction methods.
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