Maybe I'm a rube but this etymological situation puzzles me greatly. In ancient Egypt, there was this famous place called Wadi Hammamat which was utilized throughout the span of Egyptian greatness as a major centre for mining and quarrying activity. Gold mining and quarrying for bekhen stone were the chief activities; bekhen stone being prized for its colours, and utilized for making sculptures and sarcophagi. Wadi Hammamat connected the great ancient Egyptian city of Gebtu (Koptos in Greek, now called Qift) to the Red Sea coast. At Gebtu, the predynastic god Min had a cult site and caravans would depart from Gebtu on their way to and through Wadi Hammamat for mining, trade, and travel. Nowadays, the wadi is prized for the hieroglyphic and hieratic inscriptions left behind by these tradesmen of the great Egyptian civilization. Not surprisingly, Min was worshipped by the miners and masons doing their digging at Wadi Hammamat. Min was known here as "Min, the (foremost) Man of the Mountain" or "Min, the Male of the Mountain". Now, this mining activity went on here, as I intimated, for at least three thousand years. There are numerous texts and figures of an ithyphallic Min adorning the rocks here.
On the internet at dictionary.com, a mine is described as such:
an excavation made in the earth for the purpose of extracting ores, coal, precious stones, etc.
to dig in the earth for the purpose of extracting ores, coal, etc.; make a mine.
One of my favourite sites on the internet, the Online Etymology Dictionary, gives this for the origin of the english word mine:
c.1300, from O. Fr. mine, probably from a Celtic source (cf. Welsh mwyn, Ir. mein "ore, mine"), from O.Celt. *meini-. Italy and Greece were relatively poor in minerals, thus they did not contribute a word for this to Eng., but there was extensive mining from an early date in Celtic lands (Cornwall, etc.). The verb meaning "to dig in a mine" is from c.1300.
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