At the edge of the vast oriental desert of Egypt, archaeologists have discovered disturbing evidence of an ancient dark history: oxidized iron shackles. It is a chilling vision of the brutal conditions suffered by the miners during Egypt’s gold fever under the Ptolemaic dynasty more than two thousand years ago.
The shackles, which date back to the third century BC. C. From a site known as Ghozza, they provide some of the oldest direct slave labor evidence in Ptolemaic Egypt (332-30 BC).
“Under the greatness of the wealth of Egypt and the imposing mountains of the eastern desert is an exploitation story,” Bérangère Redon wrote in his new study. “The gold extracted from these mines helped finance the ambitions of the rulers of Egypt, but had a significant human cost.”
History of chain
Egypt is a gold -rich land, and its history is intertwined with this beautiful metal. In addition to the resources of the eastern desert, Egypt had access to the riches of Nubia, which is reflected in its old name, NBW (The Egyptian word for gold). The heir to gold, a wide necklace, appears with the beginning of writing in dynasty 1. But the first surviving gold artifacts date from the preliterate days of the fourth millennium because these are mainly accounts and other modest elements used for personal ornament.
However, under the Ptolemies, which ruled from 305 to 30 a. C. After the conquest of Alexander the Great, the search for gold intensified dramatically. The mines splashed the Egyptian landscape, feeding the richness and military power of the rulers such as Ptolemy I, one of the generals and Alexander and Diadochi. These wars financed with gold, luxurious lifestyles and monumental projects of public works.
The previous archaeological excavations revealed organized mining communities. In Ghozza, a town with streets, homes, administrative buildings and even bathrooms suggested a relatively comfortable existence for miners. Hundreds of ostraca, fragments of ceramic jackets with daily notes, showed that many workers earned wages. Initially, there seemed to be no signs of forced labor, or saved bedrooms, or fortifications.
But Redon’s last discovery puts things in a marked context.
A linked workforce
The shackles were buried in debris near a storage installation used to repair the metal equipment. Two separated sets of heavy ankle fists, one with seven united ankle rings, another with fragmented rings and iron links, provide unmistakable evidence of forced labor. These shackles are among the oldest found in the Mediterranean region, anterior even to examples of the Roman era.
These shackles were explicitly designed for human limbs, not animals. Unlike the strings commonly used for animals in the eastern desert, these shackles were forged to surround human ankles. When it closed directly around the ankles of a prisoner, these shackles could not have been removed without help. While the hands remained free, walking would have been arduous and exhausting due to their heavy weight.
“The discovery of shackles in Ghoza reveals that at least part of the workforce was composed of forced labor,” Redon explained. “The exact living conditions of these people remain clear because their housing places have not yet been identified, in fact, the configuration of the people seems to suggest that the population was free to moving in general.”
Echoes of Greece
Of course, it is not that Egypt was a stranger for slave labor. It existed at least since the old period of the kingdom. The Greek historian Agatharchides, writing in the second century BC. C., vividly represented the difficult situation of enslaved workers in the Egyptian gold mines:
“And those who have been convicted in this way, and are of a large crowd and all have their feet tied, work in their tasks incessant both during the day and throughout the night.”
Notably similar restrictions were discovered in the old Greek silver mines of Laurion. This suggests that Greek engineers probably introduced their mining technology, and possibly forced labor practices, Egypt during the Ptolemaic period. The Ptolemies retained their Greek inheritance throughout their dynasty. Famous, none of the Ptolemaic rulers and the elites spoke Egyptian to Cleopatra, the last Hellenistic pharaoh.
Previous excavations in another Ptolemaic mine, Samut North, also found technological parallels to Greek mining techniques. Then, there is evidence that Ptolemaic Egypt retained deep cultural and technological ties with other ancient Mediterranean civilizations.
However, despite historical references, physical evidence like these shackles is extremely rare. Its discovery in Ghozza provides the first direct archaeological test that some miners endured conditions similar to slavery, tied to heavy iron, that work under the desert sun.
Who were these forced workers? Were they prisoners of war, criminals convicted or perhaps enslaved people from conquered territories? Historical texts remain silent about these details, and so far, excavations in Ghozza have not discovered human remains directly linked to these chains. However, the safest is the heavy human cost underlying the Ptolemaic Golden Age of Egypt.
The findings appeared in the magazine Antique.
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