I’d heard of much the same thing but it was the Phoneticians or Carthaginians (pretty much the same folks?) who’d worked the mines in that AO.
The same people were credited with starting the “the big ocean out there turns to mud and you’ll get stuck!” thing to help keep competitors from the Med from intruding on their source.
The same people were credited ...
That would likely be the ancient “Libyans” or “Westerners” - those who lived from mid-Nile delta to the Atlantic coast, who are also may have started the rumor of Atlantis (for the same reason): just sail off into the Atlantic - don’t go messing with our trade routes to England and elsewhere ... about 4000 BC or earlier until the end of the Old Kingdom. You know these folks as the builders of megalithic structures like the Stonehenge, those in Malta, Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere near coasts and rivers.