Inventory number

General description

The Turin Mine Map

Cat.1879+1969+1899+2083/174+2083/182, also known as the Turin mine map, is one of the earliest known geographical maps. The papyrus was acquired by Bernardino Drovetti in Egypt, somewhere between 1814-1821, and sold to King Charles Felix ruler of Sardinia and Piedmont as part of a large collection of objects in 1824. The papyrus originates from the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina, its owner was probably the village scribe Amunnakth son of Ipuy as most of the texts are in his handwriting.

On the recto of the map the mountainous region of the Wadi Hammamat (an ancient dried up riverbed that was connected to the Red Sea) is shown. The mountains on the left side have a pink colour which indicated the presence of granite and gold deposits, whereas the dark brown mountains on the right side contained sedimentary rock. The mountains are accessible by the several wadi’s that run through the valley, which are represented as roads on the papyrus. The large white structure on the top left of the map is a chapel of the god Amun, while the smaller white shape highlights the spot where the Stela of King Seti I was located; just above it, four small village houses have been drawn. The spotted white and brown track running through the middle of the papyrus represents alluvial deposits. The drawings on the map are surrounded by 28 captions written in hieratic. Most of the texts state the names of roads or buildings, while the texts around the mountains indicate where the gold deposits were. The larger captions describe workers quarrying “bekhen”-stone, which was the ancient Egyptian name for a green-greyish stone.

The verso of the papyrus contains well over a dozen texts and several drawings. The texts on the right and left side are administrative, most of them accounts. The large text on the right side stands out as it is a letter written to king Ramesses IV. It asks him to assign an army official to perform the cult rituals for a statue made of wood, adorned with faience, jasper and gold. The texts immediately to the left of the letter describes the high priest of Amun-Ra coming to the village of Deir el-Medina and asking the workmen to collect the copper tools from the village. The texts in the middle are mostly literary texts containing among others a list of gods and the days on which their festivals were celebrated.