Egypt

To appreciate quarry and mining operations in Egypt, one must understand that without them, there would be no great Pyramids and there would be no grand temples.

To a very large extent, what we know of ancient Egypt was built from quarry and mining operations. Today, tourists would not be visiting Egypt were it not for the hard, backbreaking work of the quarrymen so many thousands of years ago.

Stone form the Nile Valley was quarried by those living in Egypt at least as early as 40,000 years ago, when the Middle Palaeolithic inhabitants of Middle Egypt were quarrying and working cobbles of chert along the limestone terraces on either side of the Nile.

Some of the notable stone quarries include Gebel es-Silsila for sandstone, Tura and Ma'sara for fine white limestone, Qua el-Kebir for very hard limestone, Gebel el-Asr for Diorite, Hatnub and Wadi el-Garawi (near Helwan) for Egyptian alabaster (calcite), Gebel Qatrani for basalt, various types of granite from Wadi Hammamat, and several quarries around Aswan for pink granite

The granite quarries at Aswan, which were first exploited at least as early as the beginning of Pharaonic times, are still in use today.