The Copper Industry of King Solomon was ecological sound. Woke Science failed. Again.

A recent study by Tel Aviv University (TAU) proves that King Solomon’s copper mines were managed ecologically well and caused little environmental pollution. It is a blow against ‘woke science’ projecting concepts into the past to justify ideological actions today.

TAU researchers conducted geochemical surveys at copper production sites in the Timna Valley dating back to the 10th century BCE, the era of King David and King Solomon.

They found that the environmental pollution resulting from copper production was minimal and spatially restricted, posing no danger to the region’s inhabitants; either in the past or today.

Additionally, TAU’s archaeologists reviewed previous studies and found no hard evidence that the ancient copper industry polluted the planet at all.

The study was led by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, Dr. Omri Yagel, Willy Ondricek, and Dr. Aaron Greener from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.

“We inspected two major copper production sites in the Timna Valley, one from the Iron Age and King Solomon’s era and another nearby that is about 1,500 years older,” says Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef. “Our study was very extensive.  We took hundreds of soil samples from both sites for chemical analyses, creating high-resolution maps of heavy metal presence in the region. We found that pollution levels at the Timna copper mining sites are extremely low and confined to the locations of the ancient smelting furnaces.

For instance, the concentration of lead — the primary pollutant in metal industries — drops to less than 200 parts per million just a few meters from the furnace. By comparison, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines industrial areas as safe for workers at 1,200 parts per million and residential areas as safe for children at 200 parts per million.” 

The new study contradicts a series of papers published since the 1990s about pollution caused allegedly by the ancient copper industry.

Woke Science

“There was a trend in the 1990s, which presented ancient copper production as the first instance of industrial pollution,” explains Dr. Omri Yagel, a leading researcher in the current study. “Such statements grab headlines and attract research grants, but they unnecessarily project modern pollution problems onto the past. Moreover, the research literature tends to use the term ‘pollution’ to describe any trace of ancient metallurgical activity, and this has led to the mistaken assumption that metal industries were harmful to humans from their earliest beginnings — which is patently untrue. Even when metal production was large-scale, becoming integral to human civilization, it was the toxic lead industry that caused global pollution, not necessarily other metals. A 1990s study argued that traces of copper found in Greenland ice cores had travelled through the atmosphere from sites like Timna. This claim, however, has not been corroborated by any subsequent study. As researchers confronting the severe environmental challenges of our time, such as climate change, we often tend to search for similar problems in the past or assume that environmental harm has been an inevitable consequence of human activity since the agricultural revolution. However, we must be cautious. While we might label a few pieces of slag on the ground as ‘pollution,’ we should not confuse this localized waste with regional or global environmental pollution.”

Based on the press release of TAU. Selected as relevant/lectured/headlined/shortened by VonNaftali. Commentary note (woke science) by VonNaftali. Pic Ai-generated. No realistic depiction.