TKH
In Part 1 of this series while introducing the overall route of the hike, I had mentioned the ancient turquoise mine of Serabit El Khadem, one of our waypoints
The explanatory information that follows is something that I have dug up on the internet post trip. I am a chemist by training and I do not have the knowledge and training to evaluate the significance and veracity of what I have dug up and I am perfectly capable of muddling it up as I summarize the summary, so reader beware! Unfortunately our guides really did not have any information to share on the history of the site owing to their lack of any appreciable formal education courtesy of the tender mercies of the Egyptian government.
At the end I show some pictures from a site near Nueiba on the Gulf of Aqaba where pilgrims to Mecca and probably to St. Katherine have left graffiti behind
This is actually a turquoise mine a bit before we reached Serabit, but showing this gives me an opportunity to talk briefly about something else. This mine looks almost the same as the one in Serabit, only the pedants will care. What we are looking at here is the mine tailings, the rock thrown over the berm as the miners dig deeper into the rock.
The person in the photo is our guide that day, the only female guide on the Sinai trail, Omm Nasser. She is an incredibly strong-willed character. It is this trait together with the fact that she is married to a sheikh that gives her the leverage to be a guide.
Nonetheless she has to deal with restrictions in her guiding activities. For instance she cannot guide groups with men in them for overnight trips, but can do so with women groups. She and her husband then built a shelter in the village and from there mixed groups can take day trips.
(Photo credit: AMK)
On The Road – TKH – Sinai trail Pt. 5 Serabit El Khadem – Traces of the AncientsPost + Comments (11)