Page 54 - Handbook of Gold Exploration and Evaluation

Nature and history of gold 35

1.12 Copy of ancient Egyptian tomb drawings depicting scales for weighing
gold (after Nolan, 1980).

reference to the use of sluice boxes for gold recovery. He referred to an early
method of sluicing attributed to miners in the Country of Saones in the Vooges
Mountains: `the winter torrents brought down gold which the barbarians
collected in troughs pierced with holes and lined with fleeces'. The fleeces were
hung on trees and, when dry, beaten to recover the gold. The method was well
known in the Bosporous region in the first millenium BC when the process
involved placing sheepskins, hair sides up, on the beds of streams. The sands
were allowed to wash over the skins and gold, caught up in the wool, was
recovered by panning after drying and beating or by burning the hides.
The well-known story of Jason and the Argonauts searching for the `Golden
Fleece' of Greek Mythology probably grew up around the exploits of
adventurers who sailed around regions of the Black Sea and made forays on