gems, Egypt, quartz, amethyst, ancient amethyst mines, ancient mining, Wadi el-Hudi

The most important of the archaeological remains at Wadi el-Hudi are a series of amethyst mines of the pharaonic period. Inscriptions associated with the site were published by Ahmed Fakhry in 1952, but the Middle Kingdom settlement and fortress adjacent to the mines were only briefly described. A preliminary survey of the site, undertaken in November 1992, has provided sufficient new data to allow the archaeological significance of the Wadi el-Hudi mining settlements to begin to be assessed.