Israel’s mines had ‘Start-Up Nation managers, engineers’ 3,000 years ago

ROSSELLA TERCATIN

New TAU research suggests it was their ability to work the Arava mines, rather than connections to the Egyptian empire, that succeeded.

Slaves’ Hill in the center of the Timna Valley. / (photo credit: Erez Ben-Yosef and the Central Timna Valley Project.)

Some 3,000 years ago, the copper industry in the Arava Valley – located between modern southern Israel and Jordan – thrived thanks to the ability of its managers, rather than because of technologies imported from the Egyptian empire, new research by Tel Aviv University has suggested.

“It appears that the secret of the success of the ancient copper industry in the Arava lies in the skills and abilities of efficient managers, who were assisted at every stage of their decision-making by talented technological experts,” said TAU’s David Luria, who conducted the study published in the academic journal PLOS ONE.

Luria considered the two main mining areas in the region, Timna, which is north of Eilat, and Faynan in Jordan.

The mines at Timna were traditionally associated with King Solomon and the Kingdom of Israel – until an excavation at the end of the 1960s revealed a small Egyptian temple that was understood as evidence the mining activity was related to Egypt and dated back to the 13th century BCE, some 200 years before King David.

However, after TAU archaeologists began to excavate again in 2013, radiocarbon dating of organic material proved that the most intense activity of the site happened around 1,000 BCE, the time of David and Solomon, when Egypt was no longer powerful.

Map of the Arava Valley copper industry (credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)

Between 1200 BCE and 850 BCE, when the operations abruptly stopped, the quantity of slag produced increased from 1,600 tons to 23,000 tons.

However, many scholars suggested that the high technological level displayed at the mines still originated from Egypt, specifically from a trip to the region by Egyptian Pharoah Shishak in 925 BCE. In 2014, a scarab bearing the figure of Shishak was discovered in Faynan. The king is also mentioned in the Bible.

“In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem and carried off the treasures of the House of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He carried off everything; he even carried off all the golden shields that Solomon had made,” reads a passage in the Book of Kings.

However, according to Luria, the goal of Pharoah Shishak’s incursion was of a different nature.

“Shishak’s expedition was not intended to physically take over the copper mines in the Arava, but rather to formulate a long-term agreement with the Arava people in order to bolster local production and thus increase copper exports to Egypt, which was suffering from local production difficulties at the time,” he said.

Luria suggested that the ancient workers at the mine relied on two systems to advance the industry, known today as “trial and error” and “scaling up.” The first implied slowly working to improve the techniques employed; the second was increasing the dimensions of production using materials and processes widely available.

“Obviously these terms were not in use in ancient times, but the application of their practical principles was made possible due to a basic understanding of engineering and common sense, which were seen in other places in the ancient world as well,” he said.

While it is impossible to know who these creative managers were, it has been possible to clearly track their work through deposits left in the mining sites, Luria said.

“These findings are the residues of copper production that have accumulated as heaps of waste that can be dated and whose size allows us to assess the volume of production at any given time,” he said. “Moreover, by conducting a chemical analysis of the copper content remaining in the waste, we can determine the quality of the production; when the amount of copper in the waste diminishes, we can conclude that the process had become more efficient.”

Luria was also able to determine that waste from an earlier period started to be reused to extract the large quantities of copper still present, which also showed a high level of technological skills and the ability to check the amount of copper present in the material.

“The important lesson to take away from this technological success is that the hi-tech savvy of individuals – educated and energetic people who lived here in the first millennium BCE – succeeded, just like it does today, in bringing about a huge revolution in the local economy,” Luria concluded. “As they say, there is nothing new under the sun.”

News From Israel- January 17, 2022

ILTV Israel News

Ancient underwater treasure found in Caesarea with Christian gold ring

ROSSELLA TERCATIN

Maritime archaeologists found several precious artifacts, hundreds of silver coins from two shipwrecks dating over a millennium apart in the ancient harbor.

.
The underwater discovery of the gold ring. / (photo credit: ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY UNIT)

Some time ago, a team of divers from the Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) Marine Archaeology Unit was surveying an area just outside the harbor of Caesarea, as they routinely do off the entire coast of Israel.

“We spotted a broken metal anchor and decided to see if there was more in the area,” said archaeologist Jacob Sharvit. “We soon started to find many other artifacts.”

That diving led to the discovery of an incredible underwater treasure, from two ancient ships dating back to the third and 14th centuries CE that wrecked in the same spot just meters off the coast – over 1,000 years apart, as the IAA revealed Wednesday. The treasures included hundreds of coins and some unique jewelry.

First established in the fourth century BCE, in the first century, Caesarea was selected by Herod to build a port city. The city remained an important center throughout the Roman and Byzantine times.

The artifacts from the Roman period included silver and bronze coins – which allowed the expert to date the findings – a precious gemstone with a lyre carved on the surface, bronze bells, an eagle figurine, symbol of the Roman rule, another figurine shaped like a dancer wearing a comic mask, and pottery vessels.

Gold ring with gemma engraved with the figure of the Good Shepherd. (credit: DAFNA GAZIT/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

“We were surprised by the quantity of bells we uncovered,” said Sharvit. “It is possible that the sailors used them to fish with fish nets during the night, or maybe they were part of the cargo and were goods to sell.”

Perhaps the most extraordinary find, however, was the gold ring. Thick and shaped as an octagon, the ring carried a green stone with the figure of a young shepherd wrapped in a tunic and carrying a lamb on his shoulders engraved on it. The “good shepherd” is one of the earliest expressions to refer to Jesus, used multiple times in the Gospels.

“I am the good shepherd,” reads a verse in John. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

“We know that similar images were found in the Christian catacombs in Rome,” said Helena Sokolov, a curator at the IAA Coin Department.
Caesarea was home to an important early Christian community and it is mentioned several times in the New Testament.

Hoard of coins from the Mamluk period including cut coins. (credit: DAFNA GAZIT/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

Among others, the Roman centurion Cornelius is said to have been baptized here by the apostle Peter (Acts 10:10).

“This was the first instance of a non-Jew being accepted into the Christian community,” said Sharvit. “From here, the Christian religion began to be disseminated across the world.”

The more modern ship was carrying a hoard of about 560 silver coins from the Mamluk period.

Caesarea port, aerial view. (credit: YAAKOV SHMIDOV/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY)

The expert said it is not possible to determine to whom the ship belonged.
The best time to go explore maritime sites is after storms, he noted, when the currents shift sands and new remains emerge.

“We are planning to go back to the site as soon as this storm passes,” he said, referring to the Carmel storm that has been battering Israel for days.

What do Israelis think of Poland? Street interview in Tel-Aviv, Israel

UBA

Holocaust Survivor Gets Thousands of Cards for 98th Birthday After Great-Grandson’s Online Appeal

Shiryn Ghermezian

Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert. Photo: Matti Zoman

A Holocaust survivor received thousands of cards and messages for her 98th birthday on Thursday, after her great-grandson rallied social media users to surprise her on the joyous occasion.

“I never expected to survive Auschwitz,” said Lily Ebert, a native of Bonyhád, Hungary, who now lives in London. “Now, at 98, I celebrate surrounded by my family – the Nazis did not win!”

Earlier this year, Ebert started a TikTok account with her 18-year-old great-grandson, Dov Forman, in order to educate the public about the Holocaust. Ahead of Ebert’s 98th birthday, Forman asked the pair’s thousands of social media followers to surprise his great-grandmother by sending her birthday cards. Forman shared Ebert’s mailing address, and she ended up receiving more than 2,500 birthday cards from around the world, including from British Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi, TikTok, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

Today my incredible great grandma Lily Ebert, a Holocaust survivor, turns 98!! “I never expected to survive Auschwitz. Now, at 98, I celebrate surrounded by my family – the Nazis did not win!” To the thousands of people who sent birthday cards & messages to Lily, THANK YOU

Forman told the Daily Mail, “It is so humbling to see so many people, from all over the world, respond to my request to surprise Lily for her birthday!”

“My great-grandmother has not just survived Auschwitz and the Holocaust; she has built a large and loving family with three children, 10 grandchildren and 34 great-grandchildren who all love her very much,” he added. “Lily’s 98th birthday, which is now being celebrated together with millions online, is another of life’s affirmations — the Nazis, and the prejudice and hatred that they stood for, didn’t win.”

Born in December 1923, Ebert was on one of the last trains that transported Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944. She was later transferred to a slave labor factory in Altenberg, Germany. Her memoir, “Lily’s Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live,” was published in September with a foreword by Prince Charles.

Forman also used social media in August to track down and unite Ebert with the family of a Jewish-American soldier who, when she was liberated in 1945, gave her a banknote on which he wrote, “Good luck and happiness.”