König Salomons Grube

König Salomons Grube (German: "King Solomon's Mines") was a mining site established in 1923 inside a network of ancient Nubian catacombs in Meroe, Sudan, owned by the German corporation Heinrich Hörner, Aktiengesellschaft. The mine was presumably named after the 1885 famous novel of the same title. It is unclear when exactly the mine was shut down, though it is likely to have been done so by the time of World War II, when Germany was preoccupied with its war effort on the African front.

In 1947, American Dr. Indiana Jones, in searching for some hint of the connection of the Nubian kings to the Infernal Machine of Babylon (information he had learned from the Soviet Dr. Gennadi Volodnikov), explored the pyramids at Meroe and came upon the old, closed-down mine. He even discovered the skeleton and pith helmet of Heinrich Hörner himself, lying next to one of the old mine openings, unburied; next to the corpse rested a pocket watch inscribed with the name "Heinrich Hörner." Afterwards, discovering the secret of the pyramids, Jones successfully unlocked the huge metal door to the main mine entrance and reactivated the mine carts' electrical system. Pursued by Volodnikov and a troop of Russian gunmen, Jones explored deep into the mines, completed its enormous puzzle, and quietly entered Nub's Tomb which lay beneath the mines, to which, apparently, Heinrich Hörner and his crew had remained utterly oblivious.