The PCMA UW Research Centre in Cairo operates despite the limitations resulting from the pandemic. Lectures and seminars are organized for the benefit of the expedition members and scholarship holders residing in the Centre.
On Wednesday (3 February) Dr. Joan Oller Guzmán presented a lecture: “Emerald mining in Wadi Sikait: results of the 2021 season”. The archaeological area of Wadi Sikait is located in the region known in ancient times as “Mons Smaragdus”, the only source for emerald within the Roman Empire. Since 2018 the Sikait Project explores this area, focusing on both the settlement of Sikait and the emerald mines around it. During this last season, the survey and documentation of the emerald mines have provided new data that allow a better understanding of how emerald production and trade worked in Antiquity.