Mine sights in Africa
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Mons Claudianus
About 40km along the Safaga-Qena road, a signposted track breaks off northwest towards Mons Claudianus, an old Roman granite quarry/fortress complex, and one of the largest of the Roman settlements dotting the Eastern Desert. This stark and remote place was the end of the line for Roman prisoners brought to hack the granite out of the barren mountains, and was a hardship post for the soldiers sent to guard them.
It was more a concentration camp than a quarry - you can still see the remains of the tiny cells that these unfortunates inhabited. There is also an immense cracked pillar, left where it fell 2000 years ago, a small temple and some other ruins. Once the granite…
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Mons Porphyrites
Mons Porphyrites is the site of ancient porphyry quarries worked by the Romans. The precious white-and-purple crystalline stone was mined and then transported across the desert along the Via Porphyrites to the Nile for use in sarcophagi, columns and other decorative work elsewhere in the Roman world. The quarries were under the direct control of the imperial family in Rome, which had encampments, workshops and even temples built for the workers and engineers here.
Evidence of this quarry town can still be seen, although not much of it is standing. A road leading to the site branches off the main road about 20km north of Hurghada.
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Sowa Spit
The long, slender protrusion of Sowa Spit extends into the heart of Sowa Pan and is the nexus of Botswana's lucrative soda-ash industry. Although security measures prevent public access to the plant, private vehicles can proceed as far as Sowa village on the pan's edge. Views of the pan from the village are limited, though they're ideal if you're travelling through the area in a 4WD.
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Sowa Pan
Pan is mostly a single sheet of salt-encrusted mud stretching across the lowest basin in northeastern Botswana. Sowa means 'salt' in the language of the San, who once mined the pan to sell salt to the Bakalanga. Today, it is mined by the Sua Pan Soda Ash Company, which sells sodium carbonate for industrial manufacturing.
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OMEG Haus
Swakopmund brims with numerous historic examples of traditional German architecture. Thanks to the narrow-gauge railway to the coast, the colonial company Otavi Minen und Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (OMEG), which oversaw the rich Otavi and Tsumeb mines, also maintained an office in Swakopmund, known as OMEG Haus .
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Wadi Sikait
Wadi Sikait was an emerald-mining centre at least as early as the Ptolemaic period. It provided emeralds that were used throughout the ancient world and was the exclusive source of emeralds for the Roman Empire.
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