In Search of Ancient Egyptian Gemstones
James Harrell, University of Toledo
Saturday, November 7, 2015
5:00 PM
LaSalle Banks Room
Oriental Institute, Lower Level
1155 East 58th Street
Chicago, L 60637
Driving Directions
This presentation is in two parts. The first provides an overview of the gemstones employed in ancient Egypt, including their varieties as well as their uses in jewelry and other decorative arts.
The second part focuses on the speaker’s geo-archaeological survey of ancient gemstone mines for amazonite (at Gebel Migif and Gebel Hafafit), amethyst (at Abu Diyeiba and Wadi el-Hudi), carnelian and other chalcedonies (at Stela Ridge northwest of Abu Simbel), emerald (in the Gebel Zabara-Wadi Sikait district), fluorite (at Gebel el-Ineigi), peridot (on Zabargad Island in the Red Sea), and turquoise (at Gebel Maghara and Serabit el-Khadim).
James (‘Jim’) Harrell is Professor Emeritus of Geology at the University of Toledo in Toledo, Ohio. He received his BA in Earth Science in 1971 from California State University at Fullerton, his MS in Geology in 1976 from the University of Oklahoma, and his PhD in Geology in 1983 from the University of Cincinnati. Prof. Harrell retired in 2009 after 30 years of teaching at the University of Toledo. For the past 25 years he has been conducting a survey of ancient quarries and mines in Egypt, and has so far made 37 trips to this country in support of this research. In recent years, he has also done fieldwork on ancient quarries in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. He is currently writing a book on ancient Egyptian quarries and mines.
Please join us after the talk for light refreshments.
These lectures are sponsored by the Illinois chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt.
