The powerful machines used to cut the hard limestone and high-voltage electricity cables are the other culprits most likely to cause injury. He was killed along with two other quarry workers on their way to work. Ali Eddin says that because many of the workers are not officially employed by the quarries, obtaining compensation for injury or death is tricky and depends on the owner. For example, if the quarry owner lives in the same town as the injured worker, compensation is more likely.
Ali Eddin says his goal is to raise awareness. It takes time. I spent the night at the quarry, sleeping alongside them. We ate together, drank together, and took photos. They were very welcoming, and they thought I should be there and should be taking photos. All rights reserved. Share Tweet Email. Read This Next Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. From the late Middle Kingdom onward, sandstone was used for all temples within the sandstone region as well as many of those in the southern part of the limestone region.
Both limestone and sandstone were also employed for statuary and other non-architectural applications, when harder and more attractive ornamental stones were not available. Along the Red Sea coast, the temples and other important buildings of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods were built with the locally available rock gypsum and rock anhydrite. In contrast to the drab, unpolished building stones, those employed for ornamental applications have attractive colors and patterns, and also take a good polish due to their greater hardness.
The principal applications of the various stones and their periods of use are as follows. Note that many of the above objects were also carved from non-ornamental limestone and sandstone. The many precious and semi-precious gemstones available to the ancient Egyptians were employed primarily for beads, pendants, amulets, inlays, and seals. Agate, amazonite, carnelian including sard and other colored chalcedonies, garnet, jasper, lapis lazuli, obsidian, rock crystal and milky quartz, steatite usually glazed , and turquoise were used from the Late Predynastic through Roman periods.
Amethyst was employed mainly during the Middle Kingdom and again during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The Romans were the first to use emerald and peridot for jewelry, and also imported into Egypt other gemstones from India, including aquamarine beryl ; carnelian, onyx, sard and sardonyx all varieties of chalcedony ; and sapphire and ruby corundum. Perhaps the heaviest used and least glamerous stone employed by the ancient Egyptians is chert, which is also commonly referred to as flint.
From Predynastic times onward it was used for tools awls; adzes, knife and sickle blades; axe and pick heads; choppers; drill bits; and scrapers and weapons dagger blades, and spear and arrow points. Even when metals copper, bronze and later iron became commonplace for these applications, chert was still a popular low-cost alternative. For tools and weapons requiring the sharpest edges, imported obsidian was employed.
A wide variety of stones, especially hard ornamental ones, were used for the heads of maces, a club-like weapon. From Late Predynastic times into the Late Period, the quarrying and much of the carving of ornamental stones was done with hard, fracture-resistant stone tools known as pounders and mauls.
These were primarily of dolerite, but siliceous sandstone, anorthosite gneiss and fine-grained granite were also occasionally used. These same rocks were also employed as grinding stones for smoothing rough, carved stone surfaces.
The actual polishing of these surfaces was probably done with ordinary, quartz-rich sand of which Egypt abounds. Under a makeshift palm frond shelter in the middle of the quarry, the workers sit on a ragged blanket to fill themselves on a humble meal of bread, cheese and eggs.
Then they don goggles and wrap scarves around their faces in an attempt to keep out the clouds of white powder thrown up by the whirring machines. Huge electric saws on rails slice rows of blocks from the mountainside. Workers then stack the stone in long, neat rows. He would like to earn more, but sees no other career options for himself. Topics Egypt From the agencies. More galleries. Most popular.
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