In January of 2022, reports surfaced in the Arabic-speaking world of a large administrative building excavated along the center of Wadi Naṣb, which is located in southwestern Sinai and was under the control of the Egyptians in antiquity (see red dot below, at Bîr Naṣb). The excavators suggested that the building served as the headquarters for the leader of the Egyptian mining expeditions during the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties 11–13), from ca. 2045–1674 BC or within these parameters.

    Throughout most of their history, the Egyptians launched mining expeditions—primarily for extracting turquoise from rock formations—into southwestern Sinai. The two principal sites for these mines were Maghara and Serâbîṭ el-Khâdim. The nearby site of Bîr Naṣb served as the water source for the miners during their trips to the turquoise mines. The water at Bîr Naṣb primarily was fed by Wadi Naṣb, a seasonal river that remained dry for most of the year.

     The square-shaped administrative building (see image below) consisted of huge blocks of sandstone, while the floor was comprised of stone tiles extending over an area of approximately 225 m² (2,422 ft²). The building consisted of two floors, and four copper ingots (each weighing up to 3 lbs.) were found to have been left on the second floor. Three copper-extraction caves were discovered in the vicinity of the building, one of whose rooms contained a workshop for processing turquoise.

     During the presence of the Hyksos in Egypt (ca. 1668–1560 BC), the building was looted, with some of its contents destroyed. The building was refurbished and reoccupied during the New Kingdom (ca. 1560–1069 BC), then exploited again during the time of a Medo-Persian king named Cyrus the Great (ca. 559–530 BC), who issued the decree for the Israelite exilics to return to Judah from Babylonia and to rebuild the Temple (Ezr 1:1-4), and whom God called "my shepherd" (Isa 44:28). The excavators found traces of copper-smelting furnaces dating to this period of use. The building also was used during the Roman era, when some internal modifications were introduced to it, including the separation of walls between the halls.

     In some rooms, turquoise-refining workshops were discovered, along with stones used to weigh the turquoise. The mining missions included up to 1,600 men, who served in numerous capacities. Some were studying the geology of the area, while others specialized in smelting minerals, and still others provided food for the expeditionary team. All of these functions are discussed in the ancient inscriptions that document the miners' activities and were discovered in the vicinity of the site.

     The reference to those who provided food for the expeditionary team fits perfectly with the contributions of my own research. Among the proto-consonantal Hebrew inscriptions that are translated in my book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet (Carta: Jerusalem, 2016), is Sinai 377, the world's oldest known alphabetic inscription, which dates to ca. 1840 BC and appears in the form of a steliform panel that was cut into the rock. Sinai 377 (see image below) was discovered by William Flinders Petrie at Wadi Naṣb (on a saddle about 800 m northeast of Bîr Naṣb) in 1905, then rediscovered and published by Georg Gerster in 1961.

     The best translation for this 4-letter steliform text is, “The baker has inscribed (this inscription).” The presence of bakers at Wadi Naṣb should be expected, as they would have needed water to bake bread for the expedition’s entire workforce. The administrative building along Wadi Naṣb thus adds credibility to my translation of Sinai 377 in The World’s Oldest Alphabet, as an inscription about a baker at Bîr Naṣb fits perfectly with an administrative building at Wadi Naṣb that was used by breadmakers to prepare bread for the miners.