STUDYING TORQUOISE MINING.

Lake County Press, Issue 2137, 27 September 1906, Page 7

STUDYING TORQUOISE MINING.

The Goddess of Turquoise and the turquoise mines in old Arabia are the things Professor Petrie, the archaeologist, has been studying. As a member of a scientific exploring party, he spent several months aniong the mountain ranges of the Sinai district of old Arabia on a stretch of level ground some 2,Mooft.

above sea level. There they pitched their tents, accompanied by .'SO workmen and the native chief of the district.

At the top levels was the sandstone in which were caverns worked by parties of ancient Kgyptians for torquoise. Some tablets still remaining showed that those parties were carefully selected, and carried on their labours systematically. }U.tv in this desert region, to which supplies of food and water had to be brought from a long distance, the men mined in companies of 500 or GOO.

The usual time for the search was from December to .March. One expedition had conveyed to it daily something like live tons of food. Tho caraverns themselves were examples of patient industry, The famous temple of the Goddess of Turquoise, to whom the workers did homage, was 250 ft. long, and contained a range of chambers or courts. From ono of the tablets it appeared that a party went out of the recognised season. But its labours were successful, and were therefore duly acknowledged with great gratitude to the patron goddess. Of the ancient inscriptions 2.">0 have been copied. They have an important bearing on the age of the torquoise expeditions, long before the birth of Christ, as well ;ts on tin- Semitic, form of worship in vogue before the establishment of Judaism.