King Solomon's 'copper mine discovered'
Archaeologists have dated the mine in southern Jordan to the biblical reign of King David
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Tuesday, 28, Oct 2008 05:31
Archaeologists have dated an ancient copper mine in southern Jordan to the biblical reign of King David and his son Solomon.
In 2006 an international team of archaeologists excavated the copper-production centre at Khirbat en-Nahas and subsequent radiocarbon dating has placed the bulk of industrial-scale production at the site to the 10th century BCE.
The research also showed there was a spike in metallurgic activity at the site during the 9th century BCE, which the authors of research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today, claim may also support the history of the Edomites related by the Bible.
Khirbat en-Nahas is located in the lowlands south of the Dead Sea in Jordan's Faynan district. The Old Testament, however, identifies the area with the Kingdom of Edom, an enemy of ancient Israel.
Scholars have continually argued over whether the Edomites were sufficiently organised by the tenth to ninth centuries BCE to seriously threaten the neighboring Israelites as a true "kingdom."
"Now with data from the first large-scale stratified and systematic excavation of a site in the southern Levant to focus specifically on the role of metallurgy in Edom, we have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in tenth to ninth centuries BCE and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible narratives related to this period, " said Thomas Levy, director of the Levantine Archaeology Lab at the University of California San Diego.
During their excavation, archaeologists discovered some 100 ancient buildings including a fortress, in the midst of a large area covered by black slag.
"We can't believe everything ancient writings tell us," Mr Levy said. "But this research represents a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data and the Bible.
"Our work also demonstrates methods that are objective and enable researchers to evaluate the data in a dispassionate way. This is especially important for 'historical archaeologies' around the world where sacred texts – whether the Mahabharata in India or the Sagas of Iceland – and the archaeological record are arenas for fierce ideological and cultural debates."