One of the major debates in the study of biblical archaeology is whether a single king ever reigned over ancient Israel in the 11th through 10th centuries BCE. According to the Bible, Kings Saul, David, and Solomon did just that; their kingdom split in two after Solomon’s death. While there is extensive corroborating evidence for these two successor monarchies, it has been impossible to prove or to disprove the existence of the original united monarchy. Excavations of the ancient copper mine in Timna, near Israel’s border with Jordan, presents some new evidence. Phillippe Bohstrom writes:
Until the collapse of Mediterranean civilizations in 1200 BCE, Cyprus had been the main regional source of copper. After the collapse, the mines in the eastern Negev came to the fore. . . . If David and Solomon were historical figures, they would have wanted to control [these] mines. . . . The sheer scale of copper production at Timna and [nearby] Faynan would have required the support of a major polity, scholars . . . agree.
For one thing, the mines needed external assistance. Separating copper from ore required maintaining charcoal fires at about 1,200 degrees Celsius for eight-to-ten hours (using blowpipes and foot bellows). No food was available in the barren reaches of the desert where the mines were: there had to be a procurement and import system, as well as one for wood to make the charcoal. Supplies would have traveled as much as hundreds of kilometers. . . . Supporting Timna’s massive mining operations, therefore, required long-distance trade, or in other words, complex economic activity involving a bureaucratic apparatus.
Archaeologists have indeed found evidence of imports from afar (and cloth) dating to the time of David and Solomon. Next to five-meter-high fortification walls, the archaeologists found slingstones, a variety of seeds, fish bones, and donkey bones and dung preserved well enough to be analyzed: it shows the draught animals at Timna ate hay and pomace, the pulp from pressing grapes, olives, and suchlike, imported from the Mediterranean coast, more than 200 km away. . . .
Not one single shard of Egyptian pottery has been found associated with the 10th-century BCE copper operations, [suggesting that it is unlikely the mines belonged to the pharaohs, as some as hypothesized]. Moreover, in the early 10th century, the great Egyptian civilization was in decline, together with most of the rest of the Levantine empires.
Read more on Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.823580