“It’s very hot, even in December. And it’s really hard to breathe when pillars of dust rise. Workers hit machines with hammers to make noise, warning other workers that the heavy, fast machinery is close by,” says photographer Mohamed Ali Eddin, describing a typical scene in a limestone quarry in Minya, Egypt. “No one can hear the others; they have to shout.”

Ali Eddin first visited the quarries in 2009 with a journalist who was working on a book. “I visited for only two days. I couldn’t take photos for more than half an hour before I had to give my eyes and my lungs a break,” he says. But the story of the workers, taking place in such a