Benghazi Gold

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Life goes on in the Souk at Benghazi in Libya although some of the shops are a lot quieter during the country's revolution.

Well that ingot weighed in at a little over 2.4 kilograms making it worth some 164,500 US dollars, right at the time when the price of gold was at an all time high.

From intricately designed bracelets and other trinkets to a solid rectangular golden cuboid. But how much is it worth?

The red hot gold is allowed to cool slightly before being tipped out of the ingot onto the table.

Carefully does it. The crucible of liquid gold is carefully poured into the ingot mould.

Carefully does it. The crucible of liquid gold is lifted to be poured into the ingot mould.

Into the melting pot go gold bracelets and other gold trinkets to be melted down into an ingot.

In a little back street in Benghazi this business carries on melting down gold as the revolution against Col Muammar Gaddafi moves to another part of Libya. Here, unfashionable gold bracelets and other gold trinkets are sorted ready to be melted down into an ingot.