Scientists from Tel Aviv University conducted geochemical surveys at two smelting camps dating back to the 10th century BC, the time of the Biblical kings David and Solomon. Timna Valley It is located in southern Israel, in the southern Arabah. They found that environmental pollution resulting from copper production is minimal, spatially limited, and poses no danger to residents of the area, past or present.
Aerial view of Site 201, north of the center of the Timna Valley on the western outskirts of Wadi Araba, Israel. Image credit: Yagel others., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-80939-5.
“We toured two major copper production sites in the Timna Valley: one from the Iron Age; King Solomon's time Professor Erez Ben Yosef of Tel Aviv University said:
“Our research was very extensive. We took hundreds of soil samples from both locations for chemical analysis and created high-resolution maps of the presence of heavy metals in the area.”
“We found that contamination levels at the Timna copper mining site were very low and confined to the site of an ancient smelting furnace.”
“For example, the concentration of lead, a major pollutant in the metal industry, drops to less than 200 ppm just a few meters away from the furnace.”
“By comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines industrial areas as safe for workers at 1,200 ppm and residential areas as safe for children at 200 ppm.”
The new study contradicts a series of papers published since the 1990s about pollution allegedly caused by the ancient copper industry.
“We are proving that this is not true,” Professor Ben Yosef said.
“Timna's contamination is very spatially localized, with the only people probably working directly at the furnaces suffering from inhalation of toxic gases, and just a short distance away, the soil is completely destroyed. It’s safe.”
“Furthermore, the agreement in the spatial distribution of copper and lead concentrations in the soil that we found indicates that the metal is ‘locked up’ in slag and other industrial wastes, so that the metal can leach into the soil. It has no effect on plants or humans.”
“Our findings are consistent with several recent studies conducted in the Wadi Faynan region of Jordan, which also show very low levels of pollution.”
“Timna and Feynan are ideal locations for this kind of research because they are undisturbed by modern mining, as happened for example in Cyprus, and thanks to their dry climate metals in the soil are not washed away. .”
“In Feynan, scientists from Hebrew University examined the skeletons of 36 people who lived at the mining site during the Iron Age and found that only three had evidence of contamination in their teeth. The rest It was completely beautiful. We are now presenting a similar picture for Timna.”
In addition to the geochemical study, the authors also reviewed existing literature and found that the hypothesis of global pollution before Roman times lacked solid evidence.
“In the 1990s, there was a tendency to attribute ancient copper production to the first example of industrial pollution,” said Dr. Omri Jagel of Tel Aviv University.
“Such statements make headlines and attract research funding, but they unnecessarily project contemporary pollution problems into the past.”
“Furthermore, research literature tends to use the term 'contamination' to describe traces of ancient metallurgical activity, leading to the erroneous assumption that the metal industry was harmful to humanity from its earliest days. They are connected, but this is clearly false.”
“Even when metal production became large-scale and essential to human civilization, it was the toxic lead industry that caused global pollution, not necessarily other metals.”
“Studies in the 1990s argued that trace amounts of copper found in Greenland ice cores migrated through the atmosphere from places like Timna.”
“However, this claim has not been supported by subsequent research.”
“As researchers facing today's tough environmental challenges, such as climate change, we often look for similar problems in the past or think that environmental degradation is an inevitable consequence of human activity since the agricultural revolution. There is a tendency to
“But we have to be careful. We might call some slag falling on the ground 'pollution', but we can't treat this local waste as regional or global environmental pollution.” should not be confused with. ”
Regarding this research, paper Published in a magazine on November 29th scientific report.
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O. Jagel others. 2024. The pre-Roman copper industry had no polluting impact on the global environment. science officer 14, 29675; doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-80939-5
Source: www.sci.news
