- Timna valley
The Timna Valley is located in southern
Israel in the southwesternArabah , approximately 30 km (18.6 mi) north of theGulf of Aqaba and the town ofEilat . The area is rich incopper ore , and has been actively mined by humans since the 6th millennium BCE.History
The existence of the remains of copper production at Timna was known from surveys conducted at the end of last century, but scientific attention and public interest was aroused when in the 1930s
Nelson Glueck attributed the copper mining at Timna toKing Solomon (10th century BCE) and named the site "King Solomon's Mines "; this theory has not been verified by subsequent field work.Archeological evidence reveals that copper mining began as early as the Late
Neolithic period, and continued more or less uninterrupted well into theMiddle Ages . Mining activities in the Timna Valley reached a peak during the reign of thePharaoh s of the 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties, spanning the 14th-12th centuries BCE, when Egyptian mining expeditions, in collaboration withMidianites and localAmalekites , turned the Timna Valley into a large-scale copper industry.
* [http://www.co-ground.com/common/timnah.html Photos of Timnah Valley]ee also
*
Timna Valley Park References
*J.M. Tebes, [http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2314512 "A Land whose Stones are Iron, and out of whose Hills You can Dig Copper": The Exploitation and Circulation of Copper in the Iron Age Negev and Edom] , "DavarLogos" 6/1 (2007)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.