Refining gold in Kush

Traces of a gold factory along the banks of the river Nile are shedding a glittering new light on the kingdom of Kush, one of the great forgotten civilizations of Africa, U.S. archaeologists announced on Tuesday. . .

In the fall of 2008, the Merowe Dam will create a 100-mile-long lake south of the Fourth Cataract, displacing some 50,000 people and flooding undiscovered archaeological records.

Right there, at the desolate site of Hosh el Geruf, about 225 miles north of Khartoum, Emberling's team rescued from the rising Nile the concrete evidence of a gold-processing center — 55 grinding stones made of a granite-like rock called gneiss.

Posted by David on June 21, 2007 6:21 PM