mashghal

Updated: May 22, 2025

In this broad basin we found none of the ruins so often reported; but immense quantities of broken quartz showed the Mashghal or atelier. The material was distinguished, from all the outcrops hitherto observed, by its pretty pink, stained with oxide of iron: it appeared in large ramifications mostly striking east-west, and in little pitons dotting the valley sole and sides.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - The Land of Midian — Volume 2

Musallim, an old Bedawi, brought, amongst other specimens from the adjacent atelier, the Mashghal el-Mu'ayrah, a bright bead about the size of No. 5 shot: in the evening dusk it was taken for gold, and it already aroused debates concerning the proper direction of the promised reward, fifty dollars. The morning light showed fine copper.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - The Land of Midian — Volume 2

The guides seemed to ignore its existence, so we christened it Mashghal Ala'l-Gezaz. On the slope of a trap-hill facing the Wady el-Ghami's, the southern valley which we had last crossed, stood a square of masonry scattered round with fragments of pottery, glass, and basalt. Below it, on the "mesopotamian" plain, lay the foundations of houses still showing their cemented floors.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - The Land of Midian — Volume 2

Eastward of it, and at the head of the Wady Shuwaytanah, "the Devilling," lay a square ruin like a small Mashghal of white quartz: here also were three stones scribbled with pious ejaculations, such as Ya Allah! and Bismillah, in a modern Kufic character.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - The Land of Midian — Volume 2