King Solomon's Mines
confirmed by dating
 IN a discovery straight
out of an Indiana Jones movie, archeologists believe they
have uncovered one of the lost mines of King Solomon.
It's not every day that science and the Bible come together
to tell a piece of history. Modern dating methods have
determined that huge mines in Jordan are 3000 years old,
supporting the idea that they were the Biblical mines of
Edom ruled by King David and his son Solomon.
"The
results are very, very consistent and leave no doubt as to
the period [during which the mines were active]," says Tom
Higham of the University of Oxford.
Even though King
Solomon is mentioned in the Bible there is little physical
evidence of his reign of the United Kingdom of Israel and
Judah. However he was said to be born in 1,000BC and died in
931BC.
As the dominant force in the area at the time,
he would have been responsible for any major industrial
works, especially if it was on the edge of his empire.
The region was known in the Old Testament as the Kingdom
of Edom.
"We can't believe everything ancient
writings tell us," Levy said. "But this research represents
a confluence between the archaeological and scientific data
and the Bible."
Higham and
colleagues dated samples of charcoal used to smelt copper
ore from the site.
The age of the Khirbat en-Nahas
mines in the Faynan district of southern Jordan has been
controversial for decades. The new evidence suggests that
the site, one of the oldest, largest and best preserved
mines in the world, really is the one mentioned in the
Bible.
"We can't believe everything ancient
writings tell us, but this research represents a confluence
between the archaeological and scientific data and the
Bible," says Thomas Levy of the University of California San
Diego.
With Higham and a team of
archaeologists, Levy has been excavating the site since
2002. In their latest study, they sampled charcoal from
successive layers through a 6-metre-deep stack of smelting
waste and dated them using carbon isotope ratios.
Egyptian invasion
The carbon right at the base of the pit, at the transition
point between virgin earth and smelting waste is 3000 years
old. "The first main phase of activity began just after 950
BC," explains Higham. "This phase lasted for probably 40 to 50
years, then a large building was constructed and copper
production continued until around 840 BC, perhaps a little
more recently."
At what would have been floor level
of the building, the archaeologists found two ancient
Egyptian stone and ceramic artifacts: a scarab and an
amulet. Neither is made of local materials and the team
believe they were brought in by the military campaign of the
Egyptian pharaoh Sheshonq I, known as "Shishak" in the Old
Testament.
The artifacts are contemporary with the
building's construction and an abrupt change in the rate of
copper production 3000 years ago. "This could be evidence of
the role Sheshonq I may have played in the disruption of the
largest known Iron Age copper factory in the eastern
Mediterranean," says Levy.
On the Web:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/10/28/solomon.mines/index.html
and
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/10/27/scimine127.xml
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