Archaeology and the Bible; 3; King Soloman's Copper Mines

Turn off the camera, Dankyou embarrassment 不要だ Turn off the oven Turn off the TV Turn off the camera Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the TV Turn off the camera Turn off the TV The subject of biblical archaeology is one that fascinates many tens of thousands of

people today, because it helps us understand all the more clearly the backgrounds out of which the miraculous messages of the Bible have come, and clarifies for us many parts of ancient biblical history which were rather dark in previous times. We do not attempt to prove the validity of the teachings of the Bible through archaeological discoveries, but we use the historical statements in the Bible in order to find out more about the civilizations of the biblical lands in which the Bible and those who played various rules in the Bible can be placed. A number of years ago we explored a part of the ancient biblical land called

the Arava, and it's still called the Wadi Arava today, and it's located between the south end of the Dead Sea and the north end of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Acaba, and I would like to show it to you on the map. It's the area, the deep rift, between the south end of the Dead Sea and the north end of the Gulf of Acaba. A number of years ago my companions and I undertook a methodical archaeological exploration of this entire area. The reason that we examined this area particularly, although it's almost completely a burning waste land, was because we had reason to believe from a number of biblical passages that we might possibly find the copper and iron which are referred to in the Bible. There

is a most interesting passage in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy 8 verse 9, in which the promised land is described to the people of Israel, that they will inherit the land lacking nothing. Then the passage goes on to conclude, and you inherit a land whose stones are ironed, and out of whose hills you can dig a copper, was a statement true or false? Was the copper and iron in the holy land, or was there not? If so, when had it been used? So we undertook this archaeological exploration of this area, and one day in the middle of this burning waste land, we found a fortress on top of a hill. The walls of that fortress are outlined on the top of a hill in the picture that you're looking at now. We found fragments

of pottery around the ruins of this fortress, which enabled us to date it to the time of King Solomon, an 10th century BC, and to various periods after that. The question which concerned us, however particularly, what was a fortress doing in this particular area? What was it guarding? And soon we found the answer. There was a whole series of ancient copper mines along the length of this rift of the Wadi Arva. Some of them regular shaft mines, such as the one that you're looking at now. And the ancient miners of King Solomon, of King's following him, cut out the Cooperiferous sandstone and crushed it, and then gave it a preliminary smelting. So that as we progressed along the length and crisscrossed the width many times of this Wadi Arva, we found a number of black heaps of slag, the remains of the

initial smelting process. And then finally we got down to the north end of the hills overlooking the Gulf of Akhada. Once again, my companions and I took our Bibles in hand and read very carefully the descriptions in the Bible of this part of the world. Because in addition to trying to find out, as we did, whether or not the statements in the book of Deuteronomy with regard to the presence of copper and iron in the Holy Land were correct or not, we were interested in trying to rediscover the long lost location of one of King's Solomon's ancient seaports. This, the most particularly important one, called Ezion Geber in his time and later on renamed Eilah. So again, we turned to our Bibles. And I

would like to call your attention now to a very interesting passage in the first book of King's chapter 9, verse 26, and following. And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eilah, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Eddom. And so on the basis of that passage, we began to examine this north end of the Dead Sea. Now the ships were built by King Hiram of Phoenicia, who sent his craftsmen in order to teach the Israelites how to build ships. And they built this fleet of ships we read in the Bible.

And these Tarsha ships, as they were called, because it meant a very speedy kind of ships that used to sail through the Mediterranean to Tarsha's probably in Spain. These ships then sailed through the Red Sea to O'Fair and to other places along the sides of the eastern arm of the Red Sea, and perhaps even as far as India. And once every three years made around Trip and brought back many precious objects. Where, however, was ancient Ezion Geber. Now, no one before us had literally paid literal attention to the actual words of the Bible. You remember? It says it's located on the shore of the Red Sea. Well, we knew where the shore of the Red Sea was because we had discovered some of King Solomon's copper mines almost directly overlooking the shore of the Red Sea. And then the passage you remember goes on to say beside Elah. Well, at the eastern end of the Red Sea, there's

an ancient Nabatean Roman Byzantine site, the remains of which are called Ila. And Ila is simply the Latinized name of Elah. And then the passage concludes with in the land of Edom. Well, previously, in my explorations, I had discovered the boundaries of Edom. And so I knew that the boundaries of Edom reached down to the Gulf of Akhaba, the north shore of the Gulf of Akhaba, this eastern arm of the Red Sea. And so, literally, and perhaps in this following statement, I may be oversimplifying the case. We walked up and down the shores of the north shore of the Red Sea and found a small mound called Telethelafi. And on that mound were fragments of pottery, which enabled us to date this mound to the period of King Solomon. And so we decided that this simply had to be the original site of Solomon's

ancient Etzion Gabor, which was renamed Ila, and so we began to dig there. And I should like to tell you something about the things we found at this site of ancient Etzion Gabor. And show you some of the articles which we discovered and some of the ruins which we exposed. Now, in some of the photographs which I propose to show to you, I show you, first of all, a photograph of the modern city of Eilat, which the Israelis are building on the northwestern shore of the Gulf of Akhaba. And over on the northwestern shore is the Arabic village of Akhaba. And on the shoreline in between these two sites of Eilat and Etzion Gabor, on the far side there in the eastern side of the Gulf of Akhaba, one can see the outlines

of the Arabic city of Akhaba, where I lived for three years while making these excavations. And in the middle of that shoreline, we discovered the site. Now, I told you that one of the reasons we were convinced that it had to be the ancient site of Etzion Gabor had to be on the north shore of the Gulf of Akhaba was that we found one of these copper slag heaps of salamonic times, and you're looking at one now, on that shore. And therefore, we were convinced that the shoreline could not possibly have retreated during the last 3,000 years which have elapsed from the time of King Solomon down to our own times approximately. So we came across this mound with the fragments of pottery on it, these indestructible fragments of pottery that enable the biblical archaeologists to give a date to the period or periods of occupation even though practically nothing else is left there. And we began to excavate that mound.

And you're looking at an airplane view now of the results of our excavations after three seasons of work there. And if you look at the lower left-hand corner of the photograph in front of you now, you will see what we first discovered. We discovered the outlines of a building which was one of the most remarkable of its kind ever discovered in antiquity. We found in a word what has proven to be the largest smelter, copper smelter, and refinery ever discovered. Can you see the two rows of bricks extending from the wall there that the south wall of this building? On every wall of this structure there are two rows of flue holes. And through one row of flue holes the winds which come constantly from the north,

northwest blow through and go into the connecting chambers throughout the entire building. And there you see an enlarged flue hole of this structure. In effect, some 3,000 years ago, King Solomon's engineers had utilized the principle of the Bessamer blast furnace. They had a natural blast because of these constant winds from the northwest. So all that they really had to do was to put their crushed ores and crucibles and light the fires and then let the winds create the necessary draft. Now in archaeological excavation one has to be very careful indeed because a very small object might tell more about the history of the ancient site than a very large object.

So as you see we sifted every room in this ancient site of Etziongeber which your call I said was later on renamed Eilat and the sifting and all the labor involved paid off because we found some wonderful things which helped us reconstruct the history of the past. Now the Bible wasn't interested in giving us all the details about this city or any other city. The Bible was interested in telling us about the people involved and how those people served God. Among the things that we found there were some ostrica, fragments of pottery on which inscribed an ink were records of business transactions which had gone on. And there's one of the most remarkable pieces of pottery ever discovered. But because there in these excavations of King Solomon's Etziongeber we found the remnants of a jar

which we were later on able to put together. And if you would notice there are two characters incised on that jar. And these are the first South Arabic characters of ancient times probably the time of the Queen of Sheba who you will remember visited King Solomon. The first South Arabic characters are their kind ever discovered in a datable excavation. In almost every room we found thousands of fragments of pottery. And in some of them we found complete jars. When I took those jars out I set them in the sun of the blazing summers heat when we were digging. And one of them was at an angle. And suddenly I found out that what I thought was simply dirt in one of the jars was beginning to melt and flow over the sides of the jar. So I ran up and straightened it. And I found that this was filled with rosin. And this jar with its rosin is now in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. We discovered

many things. We discovered copper fish hooks which they used for fishing in ancient times. We discovered these large copper nails which were used for all kinds of purposes. You remember in the passages which we read previously that King Solomon's men with the aid of the craftsman sent by Hiram of Phoenicia helped build a fleet of ships. And I'm certain that nails are bolts such as these were employed in the manufacture of these ships. Now on the very last day of the third season we made one of our most remarkable discoveries. The work was over. Our cause were packed. The Arabic workmen who had been with us for three years were

leaving for the last time. And I was walking around of the excavations giving a sort of a last look over of everything that had to be done. My Arab foreman Abbas was with me and suddenly he stooped down. He saw something glittering in the dirt and picked it up. Now I must tell you that for every object found no matter how large or no matter how small. We gave a graduate reward in Arabic it's called the back sheesh. So if you found a part of a bead you'd get the equivalent of a nickel. If you found something which was more important the price would go up. The reason for this of course was that it would make the workmen look all the more carefully because they could double or treble or quintuple their wages

by finding these objects. So he said to me he said Yamudero directs. He said although the work is over do you still give this system of rewards? And I said certainly. And he said well will you give me a piaster? Well that's a nickel. I didn't say anything. And he said well will you give me two piasters? Fine he said well you give me a shilling that's a quarter. And I said to him look Abbas give it to me and don't you worry I will reward you. So he gave it to me the object that you saw on the slide the moment ago. And I put it in my hand and I gave a quick look at it. And then I stuck it in my pocket. And I said Abbas hold out your hands like that which he did. Instead of keeping books and marking down how much each man was to get for the things he had found every day. I used

to go around with my pockets full of silver and some paper money and pay them right on the spot. And so all the work had finished about noon of that day. I had paid off very little because practically nothing was found the last day. And I emptied my pockets into his hands. And I may have been thirty or forty or fifty dollars. I didn't know exactly how much I had but I gave him everything I had. And there was this heaping pile of money in his hands and he looked at me and he said yeah I can't possibly take all your money from you. And I said look Abbas you've been a wonderful foreman. We've gotten to be friends during these three years. I don't know when I'll get back to this part of the world. And I was going to give you some kind of a present anyway. So he took it and kissed me on the cheek as the custom there. And he departed. Go back for Acaba. And I got into one of our cars

to go back to Amman and back to Jerusalem. And on route I looked at what I'd found. Let me tell you now that this is also located in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. As I looked at it I saw that there were four characters on the top of a horned ram. Now of course in Hebrew or in ancient Edomites or in ancient Kenan language you read from the right to the left. Now the first character is the equivalent of an L. The second character is the equivalent of a Y. The third character is the equivalent of a T. And the fourth character is the equivalent of an M. Well I couldn't figure out at first what it was that these four characters meant. L, Y, T, M. You know of course that in ancient Semitic languages

they don't have any vowel letters. They only have the consonants. And so you have to put the vowels in yourself. So here was L, Y, T, M. What did it mean? Well the word L means belonging to. And so we had three characters left. Y, T, and M. What I thought perhaps there is a place in the area called Yitam. The Wadi Yitam was a dry river bed in this particular area. Perhaps it was that. Then I thought no it couldn't be that because almost always when you have a seal like that and I must say if I forgot to a moment ago this was part of a seal cylinder ring and I had a copper handle on it. And it was the sign of authority of the chief officer of the place. And when coming to that conclusion immediately I knew what these letters meant because I put in the vowels. So I put in an O after

the Y. I put in an A after the T and the result was Jotham. And so we had discovered the only seal signet ring of a king of Judah that has ever been discovered in any part of the world. There is no value to this seal cylinder ring of a king of Judah or rather the value is so great that one can't put a value on it. The people of Israel had fought with the people of Eddom for many centuries over the control of this important seaport and industrial center of Etzion Geber which was later on known as Eilah. And at times it had been conquered by the Edomites and then reconquered by the Judeans. And when the later periods when the Judeans held it again it had been controlled by the Judean king

whose name was Jotham. And here we had his seal. Now mind you it wasn't the seal signet ring of Jotham himself. It was rather the seal signet ring of a governor of this area or the governor of Eilah as it was called then who was ruling in the name of Jotham the king of Judah. And with this seal signet ring he would impress his seal on official documents on wax on official documents. And when this seal was put on then it was official and then it belonged to the king or it was called a message of the king. And so we had found among other things this wonderful seal signet ring of the king of Judah. And once again we had been able to demonstrate that there was this remarkable historical memory in the

Bible. And that when the Bible said that a place such as Etzion Geber existed it simply had to be believed in. Now I have great belief in the historical memory of the Bible and I have literally been led from one important archaeological discovery to another simply because I paid attention to the literal language of the Bible itself. And so if it said there was copper I looked for copper. And if it said that ancient Etzion Geber Eilah was located on the shore of the Red Sea. Why to say it in the form of oversimplification I simply went to the shore of the Red Sea and there we found it. So here again we had discovered that the memory of the Bible was correct and had discovered also that the Bible shortcut references to history and simply alluded to them rather briefly. The Bible wasn't interested

in telling us all the facts about Etzion Geber. It wasn't interested in telling us that it was one of the greatest industrial centers of this part of the ancient world. It wasn't interested in telling us that they made nails and fish hooks and other paraphernalia and copper dishes. It wasn't interested in telling us all this but we were able to find out as a result of our discoveries in Etzion Geber. That was probably these things, the fish hooks and the nails and the copper utensils which King Solomon exported in return for all the precious products which his ships brought back. You remember in these passages in the Bible in 1 Kings 9 it's told that his ships brought back in 1 Kings 10-2 and the book of Chronicles, his ships brought back many precious objects, sandalwood and

gold and silver and all sorts of precious objects where they had to be paid for. We are sure that the things that King Solomon used to pay for these imports were the copper ingots and the copper materials which he exported from his industrial center of Etzion Geber as did those who followed him. And so following the information in the Bible, we were able to demonstrate once again how through biblical archaeology we could find out more about particular statements in the Bible which Hitherto had been a rather obscure. And once again able to point out the historical validity of historical memory in the Bible.