Return of the kings
Contested evidence from an ancient site may reunite archaeology with Biblical accounts of Kings David and Solomon
By Bruce Bower
New finds among the remnants of a settlement in southern Jordan show that a copper-producing society existed there 3,000 years ago, about 300 years earlier than many archaeologists had assumed, according to an international research team. The site’s revised age raises the controversial possibility that, in line with Old Testament accounts, Israel’s King David and his son Solomon controlled copper production in southern Jordan, says archaeologist and team leader Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego.
A long-disputed claim that King Solomon’s copper mines were located near the Jordanian site must now be taken seriously, the investigators report in the Oct. 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We have conclusively shown that industrial-scale copper production occurred at this site in the 10th and ninth centuries B.C., which resonates with Old Testament descriptions of vibrant, complex societies in the same area at that time,” Levy says.