Editing Ancient Egypt (section)

===Natural resources===
{{Further|Mining industry of Egypt|Stone quarries of ancient Egypt}}
Egypt is rich in building and decorative stone, copper and lead ores, gold, and semiprecious stones. These [[natural resource]]s allowed the ancient Egyptians to build monuments, sculpt statues, make tools, and [[fashion jewelry]].{{sfnp|Greaves|Little|1930|p=123}} [[Embalming|Embalmers]] used salts from the [[Wadi El Natrun|Wadi Natrun]] for [[mummy|mummification]], which also provided the [[gypsum]] needed to make plaster.{{sfnp|Lucas|1962|p=413}} Ore-bearing [[rock formation]]s were found in distant, inhospitable [[wadi]]s in the [[Eastern Desert]] and the Sinai, requiring large, state-controlled expeditions to obtain natural resources found there. There were extensive [[Gold mining|gold mines]] in [[Nubia]], and one of the first maps known is of a gold mine in this region. The [[Wadi Hammamat]] was a notable source of granite, [[greywacke]], and gold. [[Flint]] was the first mineral collected and used to make tools, and flint handaxes are the earliest pieces of evidence of habitation in the Nile valley. Nodules of the mineral were carefully flaked to make blades and arrowheads of moderate hardness and durability even after copper was adopted for this purpose.{{sfnp|Nicholson|Shaw|2000|p=28}} Ancient Egyptians were among the first to use minerals such as [[sulfur]] as cosmetic substances.{{sfnp|Hogan |2011|loc="Sulphur"}}

The Egyptians worked deposits of the [[Lead|lead ore]] [[galena]] at Gebel Rosas to make net sinkers, plumb bobs, and small figurines. Copper was the most important metal for toolmaking in ancient Egypt and was smelted in furnaces from [[malachite]] ore mined in the Sinai.{{sfnp|Scheel|1989|p=14}} Workers collected gold by washing the nuggets out of sediment in [[Alluvium|alluvial deposits]], or by the more labor-intensive process of grinding and washing gold-bearing quartzite. Iron deposits found in upper Egypt were used in the Late Period.{{sfnp|Nicholson|Shaw|2000|p=166}} High-quality building stones were abundant in Egypt; the ancient Egyptians quarried limestone all along the Nile valley, granite from Aswan, and basalt and sandstone from the wadis of the Eastern Desert. Deposits of decorative stones such as [[Porphyry (geology)|porphyry]], greywacke, [[alabaster]], and [[carnelian]] dotted the Eastern Desert and were collected even before the First Dynasty. In the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, miners worked deposits of [[emerald]]s in Wadi Sikait and [[amethyst]] in [[Wadi el-Hudi]].{{sfnp|Nicholson|Shaw|2000|p=51}}