King Solomon's mines destroyed the natural resources of the Timna Valley

The adventures of the explorer Allan Quattermaine in his expedition through Africa looking for the rich gold mines of King Solomon are the stuff of legend.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
04 October 2022 Tuesday 19:46
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King Solomon's mines destroyed the natural resources of the Timna Valley

The adventures of the explorer Allan Quattermaine in his expedition through Africa looking for the rich gold mines of King Solomon are the stuff of legend. The book written by Henry Rider Haggard and published in 1885 was all the rage at the time and gave rise to an entire literary genre, that of the lost worlds.

But the real mines, the ones that really existed, were not in black Africa. Nor did they contain tons and tons of pure gold. They were actually located in the desert region of southern Israel and copper was mined from them. In addition, its exploitation caused the destruction of the local vegetation, which to this day has not yet fully recovered.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University claim, in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, that the destruction of ecosystems by humans apparently dates back to biblical times. His analysis is based on charcoal used as fuel in metallurgical furnaces in the Timna Valley during the 11th-9th centuries BC.

That fuel was changing over time. The first samples contained mainly the local shrub Moorish broom (Retama raetam) and spiny acacias (Acacia spp). Both are excellent woods and were available nearby, archaeologists say. But the quality deteriorated over time, and later samples consisted of low-quality firewood and wood imported from far away.

"The old copper industry in Timna was not managed sustainably. The local vegetation was overharvested, eventually leading to the demise of both the plants and the industry. Copper production was not renewed in this region until about a thousand years later, and the environment still hasn't fully recovered 3,000 years later," they say.

It was King David, as explained in the Bible, who became interested in this remote desert region because of its copper, an important and valuable metal at the time, used to make bronze, among other purposes. "A huge industry flourished in the Timna Valley over a period of about 250 years, with thousands of mines and around 10 processing sites using furnaces to extract copper from the ore," says Professor Erez Ben-Yosef, director of the archaeological excavations.

"This impressive operation is known to the public as 'King Solomon's Mines' and we now know that copper production peaked here at the time of Kings David and Solomon," adds Ben-Yosef.

The Bible never mentions the mines specifically, but it does note that David conquered the area of ​​Timna, known at the time as Edom, placing garrisons throughout the land so that the Edomites became his subjects. Also, his son Solomon used enormous amounts of copper for the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

“We can only assume that David was interested in this remote desert region due to its copper, whose industry was in charge of the Edomites, authentic specialists in its handling. The product of it was exported to distant lands, including Egypt, Lebanon and even Greece. But the industry was not sustainable, something that fits well with the occupation by a foreign power directed from Jerusalem," he says.

The production in Timna was very advanced for its time and the blacksmiths who processed the metal were especially ore by smelting in earthenware ovens at a temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius. The whole process took about eight hours. Afterwards, the furnace was broken and the copper was recovered. The charcoal necessary to reach the high temperatures was obtained through the slow combustion of trees and bushes felled for this purpose.

The researchers collected carbon samples -- well-preserved thanks to the dry desert climate -- from industrial waste heaps kept at smelter sites and examined them in the lab, says Mark Cavanagh, lead author of the study.

"The production site called 'Cerro de los Esclavos' burned up to 400 acacia trees and 1,800 brooms each year. As these resources dwindled, the industry looked for other solutions, as evidenced by the changing composition of coal," Cavanagh notes.

The charcoal from the lower layer of the mounds, dating to the 11th century BC, contained primarily two plants known to be excellent burning materials: 40% thorny acacia trees, and 40% local white broom, including broom roots. The 'burning embers of the broom tree' are even mentioned in the Bible as excellent firewood (Psalm 120, 4).

About 100 years later, in the middle of the 10th century BC, Hun changed. The industry began to use lower quality fuels such as desert shrubs and palm trees. Trees were even imported from distant places, such as junipers from present-day Jordan or terebinths, also transported from tens of kilometers away.

Archaeologists claim that the gradual change in charcoal content was due to overexploitation that destroyed natural resources, in this case high-quality firewood, acacia and white broom. "Transportation of woody plants from afar did not prove profitable, and finally, during the 9th century BC, all production sites were closed. The industry was not renewed in the Timna Valley until 1,000 years later, thanks to the Nabataeans," concludes Ben-Yosef.