Mahd adh Dhahab

Mahd adh Dhah gold deposit geologic map

Mahd Al Thahab gold mining cross section

The Mahd Al Dhahab (Arabic: مَـهـد الـذّهـب, "Cradle of (the) Gold"), is a small gold mining area in the Arabian Peninsula. It is located in the Medina Province in the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia.

Gold was first mined in Arabia c. 30th century BC. A second period of activity was during the Abbasid Caliphate between 750 and 1258. The latest activities, by the Saudi Arabian Mining Company began in 1936 using both open-pit and underground mines at Mahd adh-Dhahab. The Saudi Arabian Directorate General of Mineral Resources carried out further gold exploration in the 1970s, following the 1971 suspension of the US$-gold exchange rate and the consequent rise in value of the metal. Gold mining is done today by the Saudi Arabian Mining Company. The mine will close in 2023 as now only low-grade gold is being mined because of the depleting resources.

Antiquity

There is a possibility that the Cradle of Gold is mentioned in the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

Research by archaeologists Juris Zarins of Missouri State University and Farouk El-Baz of Boston University indicates that the Pishon may be the now dried up riverbed that once flowed 600 miles northeast of Mahd al-Dhahab c. 3000 BC.

The site has also been identified with "King Solomon's Gold Mine." Geologists have found a vast abandoned gold mine. Among their finds are huge quantities of waste rock, an estimated million tons, left by the ancient miners, still containing traces of gold. Thousands of stone hammers and grindstones were used to extract the gold from the ore litter the mine slopes. Robert W. Luce said: "Our investigations have now confirmed that the old mine could have been as rich as described in biblical accounts."