Powered by gold: Ancient Egypt, for thousands of years one of the most powerful empires in the Eastern Mediterranean.

But where did all that gold come from?

Find out about early gold panning, gold mines, the invention of exploration geology, and how hard it was to extract the gold from the ore.

How Minerals Made Civilization, a new video series by the University of Arizona’s Mining & Geological Engineering Department and Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources is unearthing all the ways that mineral resources have affected civilizations around the world. Biweekly videos take us back in time and all over the world to look at how metals and minerals have shaped history. From the massive, high-tech iron industry of precolonial southern Africa, to the global quest for nitrate minerals in the Gunpowder Age, to the role of strategic minerals in World War II, How Minerals Made Civilization looks at the untold role of minerals all over history.