Wadi al-Allaki (gold valley in Lower Nubia)

Al-Allaki is the name of a wadi in Lower Nubia, lying between the Nile and the shore of the Red Sea, about 62 miles south of Aswan. ¹

In the Middle Ages the small valley looked like a large, populous and flourishing town, because it was a gold-mining area worked by black slave labour. Al-Ya'qubi remarked on its nuggets, and al-Idrisi describes how the prospectors fixed their positions at night, so as to see the gold dust glistening in the dark and mark the sites for the next day; the sand was then carried and washed in tubs of water. ¹