When you think of Ancient Egypt, what most likely comes to mind is great pyramids, hieroglyphics, and even Tutankhamun’s blue and gold funerary mask.

And the latter was a result of Ancient Egyptian reverence for gold, something that has become widespread knowledge recently thanks to the discovery of a huge, three-thousand-year-old gold mine.

Such mines were commonplace, in part due to the prevalence of these rich natural resources across Egypt, but also because of the reverence for gold among the wealthy in Ancient Egyptian society.

However, new excavations have also proved that this was not a particularly wholesome activity, with artefacts found by archaeologists demonstrating the harsh realities that some miners faced.

Archaeologists have been excavating Ghozza, an Ancient Egyptian gold mining village, since 2020.

And according to a recent report in the journal Antiquity, the working conditions in the village may have been less pleasant than those at other mining sites.

As researcher Bérangère Redon explains, unlike other mines, the techniques were less mechanised in the village, where residential streets and administrative buildings and baths have recently been uncovered:

“Ghozza’s workforce processed ore with hand grinding stones. Hundreds of ostraca (pottery sherds used as surfaces for writing) found at the site provide a record of daily activities, showing that some miners received wages.

Together with the absence of any guarded buildings in the village, this suggests a more diverse and possibly free workforce, prompting questions about labour dynamics in this Ptolemaic mine.”

However, as Redon continues, new evidence suggests that there was more to the working conditions here than initially meet the eye.

It was only in January 2023, three years into the excavation, when evidence of forced labor, in the form of iron shackles, were found in an eastern part of the mining village.

The shackles, which Redon explains were found in areas primarily used for food storage and preparation, were used on human prisoners, corroborating with ancient descriptions of parts of the camp as a place where prisoners of war or criminals were used for forced labor.

Their size and composition, Redon writes, makes their purpose clear:

“These shackles were not meant for restraining animals, as rope ties were typically used for that purpose in the Eastern Desert. Instead, they were designed for human use; when closed directly around a prisoner’s ankles, these shackles could not have been removed without assistance.

While they allowed the hands to remain free, walking with them would have been slow and exhausting, particularly given their weight.”

Though we often think of Ancient Egypt as a forward-thinking society, with experimentation in science, medicine, and language development setting the Ancient Egyptians apart from other contemporary civilizations, this discovery makes clear that far from the splendorous lives of Pharaohs, many people lived difficult lives.

And behind the riches and Egyptian goldmines lies a much darker truth where forced labor and exploitation were prevalent; filling the pockets (and burial chambers) of great Egyptians with gold had an alarming human cost.

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