Earthquakes and King Solomon’s Mines in the Jordan Valley

The Jordan Valley Photo: Tango7174

The Jordan Rift valley - Earthquakes Galore!

Here in Israel we’ve just experienced five mild but noticeable earthquakes in six days.  People are wondering whether there’s a big one on the way.  We have a lot of earthquakes here.  It’s not at all surprising.  We live right at the edge of the Jordan Rift Valley where the African and Arabian Plates meet.  These are so-called tectonic plates.  They are huge slabs of the Earth’s crust that float on the surface of the molten rock below.  Very, very slowly they move with respect to each other.  At these junctions, the movement of the plates gives rise to volcanoes and earthquakes.  The Golan Heights were created by volcanic activity.    Earthquakes have occurred along and around the Jordan Valley throughout recorded history. 

Mt of Olives Earthquake Damage 1927
Photo: Matson Collection 

On July 11th 1927 an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale damaged buildings in Jericho, Tiberias, Ramle, Nablus and Jerusalem (including the domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the al-Aqsa Mosque) and killed at least 500 people.  On January 1st 1837 an earthquake in the Jordan Vally east of Safed was felt up to 500 kilometres away but the main damage was in Safed, Tiberias and in Galilee villages.  Thousands of people died in Safed where the whole Jewish Quarter was destroyed. 


The Great Earthquake of 749

Fallen Columns at Sussita
Photo: Akos Nagy


Major earthquakes were recorded during every era in the history of the Holy Land but the most famous of all was in the shemitta year 749.  Whole cities were laid waste.   In Jerusalem the al-Aqsa Mosque and four Muslim palaces around the south-western corner of the Temple Mount were destroyed.  Take a trip to Beit Shean at the junction of the Jordan and Jezreel Valleys or to Sussita (Hippos) on the Golan Heights and you will see the results of this devastating earthquake.  Buildings and columns lie where they fell.  If you look carefully you will see that in Beit Shean the columns fell pointing north and in Sussita they fell pointing south.  Why should this be?  It is visible evidence that the Arabian plate on which Sussita and the Golan Heights sit is moving north with respect to the African plate which includes Beit Shean and the Land of Israel.

Timna and Feinan – Two Halves of a Crater 100 km Apart

Way down south in the Arava Valley, about 26 km north of Eilat, at Timna are the northernmost deposits of copper to be found in Israel.  There are ancient copper mines here.  Timna sits in the western half of a machtesh – a crater caused by erosion.  To find the eastern half of the crater and the copper deposits it contains you must travel 100 km north to Feinan on the Jordanian side of the Arava.  This is biblical Punon where the Children of Israel stopped on their way from Egypt.  Some 30 million years ago movement between the tectonic plates in the Jordan Rift Valley separated the two halves of the crater.

King  Solomon’s Mines?

King Solomon's Pillars Timna
Photo: Chmee2

Timna also hit the news this week.  Tel Aviv University archaeologist Erez Ben-Yosef used carbon dating to examine organic remains from the ancient copper mines here.  He concluded that the mines were from the Iron Age – the time of King Solomon.  Are the legends of King Solomon’s Mines true after all?

Already 6,000 years ago prehistoric man began to extract the copper deposits that could be found at Timna and to produce pure copper by smelting the ore at high temperatures.  At first copper deposits above the ground were exploited.  Over time the miners began to dig open pits then shallow “burrows” and eventually deeper mine shafts to reach the valuable metal ore.  For a time it was thought that these were the legendary King Solomon’s Mines.  Three large sandstone columns formed by erosion became known as King Solomon’s Pillars. 




Egyptian Rock Painting, Timna
Photo: Shlomo Chetrit

The first archaeological exploration of the copper mines at Timna began in 1959.  The archaeologist Beno Rothenberg discovered an Egyptian temple to the goddess Hathor.   Hathor is the goddess of fertility and also the goddess of mining.  This, together with a huge rock painting showing Pharaoh Rameses III paying homage to Hathor seemed to confirm his theory that the major mining enterprise here was Egyptian and dated to the 12th and 13th centuries BCE.  Later, after the Egyptians left Timna, Midianites took over the mining and altered the temple to fit with their rituals and beliefs.

The recent carbon dating evidence gives a strong indication that the mines are not Egyptian but from the Iron Age period.  Ben-Yosef believes that the mines were operated by the Edomites a people that lived along the Jordan Valley.  They abandoned the mines in the 10th century BCE perhaps because of an Egyptian invasion or perhaps due to competition from copper produced in Cyprus.  Are these King Solomon’s Mines?  We can’t say that.  But who knows – they may have supplied his building projects with precious copper.

Beit Shean and Timna Park are fascinating and extensive sites well worth visiting.  Follow the links for more information.

Sussita isn’t really accessible for unaccompanied tourists yet but here’s a link to the Hippos / Sussita excavation project.