Archaeologists from the Oriental Institute have discovered a gold-processing centre along the middle Nile in the Sudan, an installation that produced the precious metal sometime between 2000 and 1500 B.C. The centre, along with a cemetery they discovered, documents extensive control by the first sub-Saharan kingdom, the kingdom of Kush.

The team found more than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss along the Nile at the site of Hosh el-Guruf, about 225 miles north of Khartoum. The region also was known as Nubia in ancient times. Groups of similar grinding stones have been found on desert sites, mostly in Egypt, where they were used to grind ore to recover the precious metal. The ground ore was likely washed with water nearby to separate the gold flakes.

“This large number of grinding stones and other tools used to crush and grind ore shows that the site was a centre for organized gold production,” said Geoff Emberling, Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and a co-leader of the expedition. The research was funded by the National Geographic Society and the Packard Humanities Institute, which also offered to support all the other teams working in the Fourth Cataract salvage project, the location of the University’s expedition...

Discoveries in Sudan reveal economic organization of an ancient African state — the kingdom of Kush , William Harms, The University of Chicago Chronicle, Illinois, USA, Vol. 26, No. 19, July 12, 2007.

Previously:

Ancient Gold Centre Discovered on the Nile, June 19, 2007.

Egypt currently has a dozen new museums under construction — and not enough masterpieces of ancient art to fill them, the secretary-general of the Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said yesterday in an interview.

"People used to say that Egypt does not have good museums. We have better museums now than they have," Mr. Hawass, who is in New York to promote the Discovery Channel documentary, "Secrets of Egypt's Lost Queen," about the possible identification of the mummy of Hatshepsut, said. But "we don't have enough objects," Mr. Hawass said.

... The identification of the mummy now believed to be Hatshepsut could not have been made until recently, for instance, because Mr. Hawass did not allow genetic testing on mummies...

Mr. Hawass changed his position on genetic testing after the Discovery Channel offered to fund an Egyptian-run lab in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo...

Mr. Hawass also predicted that the Tutankhamun exhibit would come to New York — either to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Brooklyn Museum — after it returns from London next year. The Met had originally declined to be part of the tour because of its policy of not charging for individual exhibitions; it is unclear why the museum would reconsider now...

Mr. Hawass is also intent on making antiquities trafficking a serious crime in Egypt. [A] law before the parliament would increase [the current 5-year sentence] to 25-years. ... [A new] law would also, Mr. Hawass said, make it illegal for foreign museums to make full-size replicas of Egyptian antiquities without obtaining Egypt's permission...

Egypt's Antiquities Tsar Wields His Power, Kate Taylor, The New York Sun, New York, USA, July 12, 2007.

cf. Egypt's antiquities chief embarks on major projects, Business Intelligence Middle East, UAE, July 12, 2007.