Mine entrance
The ancient copper mines in Timna Valley of southern Israel have long been associated with King Solomon’s mines. Brand new findings, however, indicate that the metalworkers there weren’t Edomite slaves, as has been assumed based mainly on the horrid conditions of the desert, but rather esteemed craftsmen.
Men with the knowledge to smelt and work copper would have been highly regarded. Raw copper is soft, but once smelted and combined with tin it makes bronze, and was used to make tools and weapons, making it an enormously valuable resource. To the untrained, it appeared these smelters turned stone into swords.
At the site, the archaeologists found the remains of a highly sophisticated smelting process. It requires a furnace built in precise dimensions, the right amount of oxygen and charcoal, heat at 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, a properly connected bellows to blow the right amount of air, and an exact mixture of minerals. There are over 30 variables in order to change the raw stone into pure copper.
Chalcolithic copper mine in Timna Valley
Just as the workers were once considered slaves, the wall found at the Timna site was thought a barrier used to restrain those slave laborers. Now they think it was used to protect the technology and the product.
The change in theory about the status of the workers is based on an analysis of their diet. Those same horrible desert conditions, which led researchers 80 years ago to assume they were slaves, perfectly preserved remains of their luxurious imported foods.
“The fish weren’t from the nearby Red Sea but from the Mediterranean,” says Dr. Ben-Yosef. Seeds were also of fruit that couldn’t have grown there, including grapes and pomegranates, as well as wheat and barley – they all had to be imported, he says.
The archaeologists could tell who got the best pickings, the choicest cuts of meats, by the proximity of waste piles to the smelts and other points of occupation. “Clearly, the people working in the kilns got the best food,” he says. “Others, for instance stone breakers and coal carriers, ate less well.”
The research on the ancient societies of Timna continues as part of the Central Timna Valley Project of Tel Aviv University, by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen, of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures.