Nelson Glueck and King Solomon—A Romance That Ended

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In 1935, Nelson Glueck of Hebrew Union College conducted a survey of the Negev which astounded a generation of Bible students at what could be learned from surface finds alone. Among these finds in the Aravah rift (also found a year earlier by a German scholar Fritz Frank) were a large number of copper slag heaps and, even more surprising, seven camps where the copper smelters, or perhaps the miners, must have lived. On the basis of some pottery sherds found nearby, Glueck attributed this copper mining operation to King Solomon, and concluded that here lay the source of much of his great wealth. According to Glueck, this mining operation also explained the protracted wars between Judah and Edom, apparently fought over control of the valuable mines.

010A few years later Glueck excavated a site known as Tell el-Khaleifeh, a third of a mile north of the coast of the Gulf of Eilat, between the site of the modern city of Eilat and Jordanian Akaba. Glueck identified Tell el-Kheleifeh with ancient Ezion-Geber—and theorized that its name had been changed to Elath during the days of the kings of Judah. As Ezion-Geber, it served as the port for King Solomon’s profitable southern trade. Later, as Elath, it was also a major port for the kings of Judah. Among the structures which Glueck excavated at Tell el-Kheleifeh were the remains of a large building with a puzzling series of holes in its walls, two rows in each wall. The building was located in the center of the valley where the winds blew fiercely down the wadi as if forced through a wind tunnel. This phenomenon provided the key to Glueck’s explanation of the puzzling holes, and therefore the function of the building. The holes “could only be flues”. The strange building therefore must have been the smelter for King Solomon’s mines. The holes in the wall were carefully placed to utilize the almost constantly blowing winds from the north and northwest to fan the flames in what Glueck identified as the furnace rooms of the refinery. “Solomon’s engineers had harnessed the wind to furnish a natural draft,” according to Glueck who declared he had found “the largest and most elaborate smelter ever discovered in antiquity.”

It was not long before critical scholars began to question some of these enticing interpretations. Then in 1959 an Israeli photographer-turned-archaeologist named Beno Rothenberg (he had gained much of his experience as the photographer on Glueck’s excavations) began a new survey of the Aravah. It was then that Glueck’s theories began to dissolve.

The first challenge to Glueck’s findings came from Rothenberg’s reexamination of the excavation materials from Tell el-Khaleifeh, especially the building which Glueck had identified as Solomon’s giant smelter. On reexamination, it became clear that the holes in the walls which Glueck had identified as flues were in fact holes that held up wooden ceiling and floor beams. The beams themselves had in the course of time decayed or, more likely, had burned, leaving only the holes into which they fitted. Around these apertures Rothenberg found remains of the mud plaster which bonded the beams to the holes, both inside and out, covering the ends of the timbers and obviously preventing any air from entering the apertures.

With the demise of the “flue” theory, the purpose of the building had to be reassessed. Had it been a smelter? As Glueck himself conceded, the answer was a resounding “no”. It had probably been a storehouse or granary.

This was but the first of several blows to Glueck’s theories. The next resulted from Rothenberg’s excavations in the Timna Valley of the Aravah, where Glueck had earlier identified the copper mines as belonging to King Solomon—the mines which had provided him with much of his great wealth, and which, according to Glueck, later became the prize of the wars between Judah and Edom.

Rothenberg has presented his findings through 1970 in a handsome new volume.^a One of the most important of these findings is negative: Rothenberg found no evidence of mining activities at these sites after the 12th century B.C. and before the renewal of the mining industry in the area by the Romans more than a thousand years later. Solomon ascended to the throne about 960 B.C. This was 150 years after the mining industry in the area had been discontinued. Thus, as Rothenberg has put it, “King Solomon’s mines are no more”—011although few tourists are as yet aware the fact.

Nor can these copper mines any longer explain the wars between Edom and Judah.

How can Rothenberg be so sure these mining activities ended in the 12th century? He can provide an absolute date for the entire repertoire of ancient pottery found in the area—and none of this pottery dates after the 12th century and before the Roman period. Rothenberg was able to date this pottery so accurately not only because of our increased knowledge of Palestinian pottery forms since Glueck’s day, but more importantly because examples of the indigenous pottery were found by Rothenberg in a stratified context to which he was able to give an absolute date.

Rothenberg found an ancient temple—at the foot of a popular tourist attraction known as Solomon’s Pillars. (The pillars are huge rock formations sculptured by eons of erosion, and, of course, bear no connection with King Solomon except in name only.) When excavated, the temple revealed layer after layer of occupation in which were discovered datable objects and artifacts which could be used in turn to date previously undatable pottery sherds found with them. Examples of these identical pottery forms, now reduced to potsherds, were also found in the Timna mining area near Solomon’s Pillars and thus provided an absolute, reliable date for the mining activities.

The earliest occupation of the temple site—and therefore the mining area—was in the Chalcolithic period, during the fourth millennium B.C. During its main phases, about 2,000 years later, the Temple was dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, patroness of mining. This Egyptian period extended from the end of the 14th century B.C. to the middle of the 12th century B.C. Thereafter, the temple was used for a short period in the middle of the 12th century as a Semitic, probably Midianite, shrine. The next and final period of occupation was during the Roman period. But nothing else in between. Nothing from the time of the Israelites. And, it must be emphasized, all pottery forms found in the area are represented 012by stratified, datable finds from the Temple site.

Interestingly enough, Rothenberg cites Biblical evidence to support his archaeological conclusion that neither Solomon nor the Judean kings engaged in mining activities in this area. In 1 Chronicles 18:8, it is recorded that David obtained from foreigners the bronze (made of copper and tin) from which Solomon’s artisans later fashioned many of the furnishings of the Temple. Moreover, the Temple fixtures were cast in a foundry located in the Jordan Valley, almost halfway between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee (1 Kings 7:46), hardly a likely spot for a foundry intended for metal mined in the southern Aravah.

Although Solomon did not engage in mining in the southern Aravah, it is clear that he did engage in extensive commercial activities (1 Kings 9:26–28). That is why Glueck’s identification of Tell el-Kheleifeh as Solomon’s port city, Ezion-geber-Elath, evoked such enthusiastic interest. Glueck regarded this identification as “beyond all question of doubt…Tell el-Kheleifeh had to be Ezion-geber: Elath!” (exclamation point Glueck’s). Now Rothenberg seriously questions this identification too. About 3 miles south of Eilat in the Gulf of Eilat is an island known to modern tourists as Coral Island. The island, topped by the crumbling remains of a monumental medieval castle, easily visible from the shore, is a picture-postcard sight as one drives south from Eilat along the Sinai coast. It is here that Rothenberg believes Ezion-geber-Elath was located. The Arabs call this island Jezirat Fara’un (The Island of the Pharaohs). According to Rothenberg, Jezirat Fara’un was the port for the Egyptian mining operations as well as for the commercial activities of Solomon and later Judean kings. While further excavation is needed to confirm this contention, Rothenberg points to the fact that the island is the only natural anchorage in the area; Tell el-Kheleifeh has no natural anchorage. Moreover, Rothenberg has found remains of a massive casemate wall which rings the island at the shoreline, and a harbor wall which faces the mainland. Opposite the harbor—on the mainland—a loading pier has been discovered; here the ferry must have landed which carried men and materials from the harbor to the mainland. Although these structures cannot yet be dated conclusively, Rothenberg believes they date to the period just before the United Monarchy of Israel. Pottery sherds from the fourteenth to twelfth centuries indicate that the port was used during the period of the Egyptian mining activities at Timna, and what would be more natural, once the island fell to the Israelites, than for Solomon and later Judean kings to exploit this natural anchorage for their own commercial activities. Much remains to be proven by future excavations, but the possibilities are intriguing.

It is interesting that Glueck’s Rivers in the Desert, from which most of his absorbing findings recounted here have been taken, is still enjoying a brisk sale in a paperback edition. One wonders how many of his new readers are aware of the large doses of incorrect or dubious information which the book contains. In 1965, Dr. Glueck wrote an article in The Biblical Archaeologist (“Ezion-geber,” Vol. 28, p. 70) in which he conceded that the holes in King Solomon’s smelter were not flue holes, but rather holes which once held up wooden beams. He recognized that the building was not a smelter. He also retreated from his positive identification of Tell el-Kheleifeh as Ezion-geber-Elath. But he did not abandon either his ascription of the Aravah copper mines to King Solomon or his contention that they formed the basis for a considerable part of his wealth. One cannot help but feel that, had he lived, he would have as graciously disavowed 014these positions as he did his others when error was shown. Yet, despite all this, Rivers in the Desert will no doubt continue to be more widely purchased and read—and believed—than Rothenberg’s new book.

One reason is that Glueck writes very well and Rothenberg writes very badly. Rothenberg has the materials here for a very exciting story, but unfortunately one must dig for it with almost as much effort as Rothenberg did for the temple at the foot of Solomon’s Pillars.

Rothenberg’s story is not limited to the correcting of Nelson Glueck’s errors. There is more, much more, in Rothenberg’s book. As a result of his explorations, which have continued since the publication of his book, we now know more than ever about ancient mining and metallurgy—from Chalcolithic times to the Roman period. Rothenberg even found the droppings of donkey-dung which had formed a line as these pack-animals endlessly carried the ore from the copper mines to the smelting installations. Within the past year Rothenberg has been exploring dozens of 50-feet deep shafts with steps carved in the walls and numerous underground tunnels branching out from the shafts. Rothenberg is convinced these were underground copper mines from the chalcolithic period—over 5000 years ago.

A whole new chapter of Midianite history has also opened up as a result of his excavations. Among Rothenberg’s most 016stunning finds is a tiny Midianite cultic snake exquisitely molded of copper and gilded with gold, which still adorns the snake’s head. The Midianite connections with the Hebrews of the Exodus are attested in the Biblical account. Indeed, Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, was a Midianite priest. Long before Rothenberg’s excavations it had been suggested that Jethro had taught Moses to fashion the Nechushtan, the magic serpent (Num. 21:8–9), which was worshipped in Israel at least until the time of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4). Now archaeology provides a cultural background to the little-known Midianites. Rothenberg has also discovered evidence of a Midianite tented shrine which provides a parallel to the tent-shrine of Israel’s desert wanderings, the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle. It is interesting that some scholars believe that Israel’s cult may originally have been of Kenite-Midianite origin. Rothenberg’s excavations also shed new light on the Kenites and, perhaps, on the Amalekites as well.

There is much to be learned in Rothenberg’s new volume. It is well worth studying.

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In 935, Nelson Glueck of Hebrew Union College conducted a survey of the Negev which astounded a generation of Bible students at what could be learned from surface finds alone. Among these finds in the Aravah rift (also found a year earlier by a German scholar Fritz Frank) were a large number of copper slag heaps and, even more surprising, seven camps where the copper smelters, or perhaps the miners, must have lived. On the basis of some pottery sherds found nearby, Glueck attributed this copper mining operation to King Solomon, and concluded that here lay the source of […]