the world of petroglyphs cd # 1-copyright by stonewatch ... · the timna-valley nearly 850 m high...

StoneWatchThe World of Petroglyphs

Part 4Timna-Valley / Israel

Fotos and text: Josef Otto

The World of Petroglyphs CD # 1-Copyright by StoneWatch 1998 PAGE 1


The Timna-Valley

MAP 1

MAP 2


About the second century A.D. roman engineers took over the copper industryafter releaving the reign of the Nabataeans. When the region of Araba was occu-pied by the third legion of „Cyrenaica“, the Romans drove tunnels with ironworking tools into the limestone(small fotos page 9)to improve the profit. Thesmelting was now done more in the south, where the strongly needed water andwood for the fireing was to be found.

The ovens in use at the roman time were very similar to the egyptian ones, andthis type stays in use - besides the typical roman crucible ovens for the castingof ingots and instruments - till the Middle Ages. Still today the ore is producedat this place, but now more profitable with modern machines for mining andsmelting.

On this place there have not only been found the traces of the copper industry,but also more than 15000 finds of offerings, fragments of ceramics, rockpain-tings and metal goods, which concern a cultplace, at that time dedicated to theprotecting goddess Hathor. At the end of of the 12. century the temple of thegoddess had probably been destroyed by an earthquake.

The Midianites succeeded in reign the Egyptians, removed the remains of thetemple and built up a new cultplace, typically for inhabitants of the desert it wascovered with a tent. There the most holy thing to be worshipped, was a copper-snake with a golden head.

The first note about the Timna-Valley as an old coppergaining plant comes fromJ. Petherick (1868). In the following decades the works of Musil (1902), Frank(1934) and Glueck (1935) contributed to the supposition, to recognize more thanjust a copperindustry in this poor valley.

Glueck and Nelson discovered seven smelting places(big foto page 9, andsmall foto page 8 below left)surrounded by heaps of dross - a sign for cop-perore manufacturing at this place. To what extent copperore had been existedthere or if the researchers had found such deposits, this is not mentioned in theirreports.

The Timna-Valley

Nearly 850 m high are the rock creations of limestone (foto 5 and 6), chalk,dolomite and the like in the Timna-Valley, which is about 60 qkm wide. It hasthe form of a horseshoe (map 1 and 2), whose opening points to the east, to theplain of Araba. Today this region is hardly settled.

From place to place there are kibbutz with cultivations of fruit and vegetables.Even Nomads, remains of a once ruling people of the desert, are now a seldomview. But so it was not ever.

The Timna-Valley is one of 300 big archaeological sites of a culture which isabout 6000 years old. In connection with the prehistoric culture, also some evi-dences for a very considerable industrialization. The magical word was copper-ore, which made man 6000 years before settle at this place.

Egypts, Romans, Arabs and their descendants were mining the all times deman-ded metal. Timna is one of the few places, where coppermining and the belon-ging smeltingindustry can be proved through the centuries. More than 3000years B.C. the region around Timna was settled by northern Arabs. In primitivemeltingpits, which were used till the 12. century B.C. by the Egypts, these peo-ple produced their copper.

The Pharaohs of the dynasty of the Ramessides occupied groups of very wellorganized workers, which left their still visible signes in form of rockpictures(fotos page 10). Engravings in limestone, of archers in chariots, at these times atypical hunting- or fightingscenery for Egypt, and sites of smelting are signs forthe once achieved standard of living and the high stand of technique.

Therefore the ovens for the smelting were already run with bellows. Nozzles ofclay with safety devices against the heat were an enormous improvement for thecopper-industry. Wrongly are assumptions of a relation of these copperminingsto king Salomo, because the finds speak against this (foto page 7, KingSalomon’s Pillars).

Only by the way of this discovery and following excavation of a chalkolithiccopper smelting plant, an extremely well organized copperworking industry hadbeen proved.

Surely this is the oldest region in southern Negev and the adjacent Sinai-penin-sula to be settled permanently. Some sites in Central and South-Sinai from thepreceramic Neolithic B show also that contacts between Asia and Egypt are stillolder.

Summing up, the excavations give evidence about this coppermining industry asan undertaking of the egyptian pharaohs from the dynasty of the Ramessides,under the participation of local Midianites and Amalekites.

We have written evidence of the following names of pharaohs in Timna, underwhose reign the copper had been produced:

Sethos I. (1318-1304), Ramses II. (1304-1237), Merenptah (1236-1226), SethosII. (1216-1210) and the queen Twosret (1209-1200 B.C.). All belong to the 19.dynasty.

From the 20. dynasty we know about Ramses III. (1198-1166), Ramses IV.(1166-1160) and Ramses V. (1160-1156 B.C.).

Very interesting are some fragments from bracelets with inscriptions like„Hathor, mistress of the turqoise“ or „King of Upper and Lower Egypt“.Unfortunetly there is nothing known about the owners of this bracelets.

Supported by this knowledge, in 1959 Beno Rothenberg guides the first syste-matical surveys of the terrain of Timna to find more traces of this prehistoriccopperindustry. It did not take a long time till success came and there were moresignes, clearly pointing at a copperore manufacturing.

Finaly the supposed mining places had been recognized, and in all this pointsnow to a miningindustry in big style in these old times. The sites document threedifferent epoches of mining: traces at the rockfaces point at opencast mining, butthe horizontal tunnels and deep shafts to the subterranean mining.

At the beginning nobody knew for sure in what chronological relation were thesites with the finds, because these were not only primitive prehistoric flintstonetools, but also ceramic pieces from the Iron Age and from roman-arabic origin.To the smeltingplaces found by Frank and Glueck could after short time beadded some new ones.

A great amount of spread ceramicparts which had been found on this terraincould not be classified, nor chronologically nor stylistically, because no othercomparable finds are available.

Because of some prejudices against the tradition about „king Salomon’s mines“and - connected with this - about the dating between the 10. and 6. century B.C.there was a discrepancy with the chronology of the found artifacts.

Only as Timna has been systematically surveyed by archeological diggings, afterprofund examinations of the sites and detailed studies of the archaeological andmetallurgical finds, the different methods of mining could be found out.

These wideranging examinations concerned also the Araba-terrain as the Sinai.Both regions in their whole were the background of a long cultural and techno-logical progress. The oldest human traces for settlement in Timna go back to theChalkolithic (Copper Age), the 4. millenium B.C. So the mesozoic deposits ofcopper had been exploited even before 6000 years.


Rockengravings at the Timna-Valley

The nearly 5 m long and 2 m high rockface covered with engravings (Ill. 1 andfoto 1) is to be found about 2 m above an heap of stones and rubbles at the footof one of the southern mine walls. This heap, most probably going back to theerosion of the rocks, rises to nearly 8 m above the actual floorlevel which mayhave been then some points higher.

The representations are systematically and consciously engraved and can not beexplained as spontaneous works. If they all go back to one engraver, one can notclearly say.

The figures have been drawn with a hard pin into the rockwalls, and they are par-ted, inside of an imaginative frame around them, by little groups of holes.Mainly the left part of the pictures is concerned by this. Sense and purpose ofthese holes are still not explained.

The field of representations can be recognized as a three-line-composition, fromwhich the one in the middle is the worst in condition whose meaning is difficultto understand.

At the left upper corner of the representation one can see a human figure(foto1) with stretched out arms who got on his arms only four fingers (foto 2), alsostretched out. Remarkable is the big genital of this figure, shown as an unnormalsize erection. This isolated position of the figure and the fact, that a man is con-cerned who is standing higher than everything else in this representation, makesone assume a certain context. Similar figures with an enlarged phallus can oftenbe found in the Araba-plain.

On the three lines of representation below, there can be seen mostly ibexes(capra ibex) and ostriches (struthio camelus), lesser represented are some spe-cies of gazelles. Some of the persons in these lines may be hunters, warriors orherdsman; clearly one can recognize lassos and/or shields in the left hands. Oneof the ibexes is lying on his back. In the upper row one can see a figure, consi-sting of a quadratic body with two attached legs below; this figure also existssomewhere else in the Araba plain(Ill. 1 and foto 1), to comparison with (Ill. 5)

The World of Petroglyphs CD # 1-Copyright by StoneWatch 1998 SEITE 5

In the line below one can assume a representation of a vehicle (foto 3), reco-gnizable only by ist axis and wheels. One can not see whether this vehicle got abottom and in which way it has been moved by animals.

In a very weather-beaten condition there can just badly be seen two big ibexeswith long turned back horns which are at the heads provided with a kind of ayoke.

It is mostly probable that the engraver showed something in his picture, whichhe will have seen, but maybe not will have known. So this representation differsin style, because the scene as a whole is mainly naturalistically engraved, but theonly thing in schematic style is this vehicle.

About 120 m to the west there is at the same rockface a smaller nearly 3 to 5 mwide and 40 m deep crack. Immediately at the first entrance there is at one over-hang a nearly 9 m long and about 1,5 m high space of rockengravings. Theengravings (Ill. 2 fotos AA - K) had also been worked with a very hard andpointed tool, and they were emphasized by colouring them with red and whitepaint. The whole representation is full of informations, but very much of it isvery far from a secure explanation, the more because there are nearly no exam-ples for comparisons.

The representation is mainly dominated by manned chariots with four-spoke-wheels, whereas the axis is shown at the backpart of the chariot. A balustrade ora surrounding to protect someone from falling down is not recognizable. Theoxen, harnessed in front at the pole, bear a yoke.

One or two armed man standing on the platform wear round shields and bows(foto A). Nearly all of them are armed with a warax and some wear also a kindof dagger. This makes one think of the New Kingdom-period in Egypt (15th. -Beginning 14th cent. B.C.) as a date for the engravings.

Another Detail also reminds one of wallpaintings of this egyptian period. For afree use of the arms in struggling the reins were bound round the hips of the cha-rioteers in this engraving.


According to this the loner in this scene maybe someone who is peering, whilewith his raised hand shadowing his eyes against the sun.

The subject matter of the whole rockpicture may concern three themes. The firsttheme corresponds to the representation on the upper left side (like explainedabove).

The second theme can be called period of hunting. It is composed of the diffe-rent fields of the whole representation.

The third theme concerns war, quarrel as well as the presentation of arms andpower and is also composed of single pictures.

Using the components of the engravings as characteristics for a date of theircreation we can assume that this process took place in the period between the 19.and 20. egyptian dynasty.

Not far away from the Timna-Valley there is an other field of engravings whichis very remarkable for this region. It concerns a chalcolithic cultplace to the westof Jotvata in Nahal Odem (Ill. 4 and fotos 4 and 5).

The nearly 10 m high graywhite nubic blocks of limestone can already be seenfrom far away. Not easy to guess are the remains of walls of a little district at thefeet of each of these limestones being pulled down by Bedouins, who had sett-led around for a while.

This district had been used as a huntingtrap: there were walls widely opened tothe surroundings, so that animals could be lured into it without finding out again,because the walls were bowed to the inside, like in a labyrinth.

Just beside this trap of game there is a narrow crack in the rock at whose wallsare some engravings with a very remarkable character. At the inside of the crackthe rockface is designed with an odd pair of human figures, maybe concerningdeities being worshipped here and therefor placed at a very heavily accessibleposition in this crack (foto 4).

At the left side of the engraving there can be seen a new kind of human figurerepresentations (foto AA). The bodies consist of two vertical lines, maybe forrepresenting a different length of the body. The head does not agree with thenormal rounded form. Probably these figures are meant to wear helmets. In addi-tion they are equipped with swords of a long hilt and with a scabbard, and theywear also a kind of a skirt with fringes.

These humans are surrounded by more animals than can be seen on the other partof this representation: one can recognize ibexes, ostriches, dogs and some veryrare oryxantelope (Oryx leucoryx) with there typical straight horns.

This antelope can not be seen on any of the rockpictures now known at the NearEast, even though they still exist in today’s Southarabia. The dogs which areshown here seam to take part in the hunt. In the drawing one can clearly reco-gnize that one of the huntsman is shooting an arrow at an ibex (foto B).

At the far right there can be seen a single man (foto J), whose engraving isalready on another slab and is differentiated from the rest of the composition.Like on the previous rockpicture (foto 1) this man is standing alone aside, risesthe left arm and spreads the four fingers of the hand. The right arm is bend andits hand is held at the height of the hip, also here with spread fingers. Notablealso is the over normal size phallus, occurring here again.

Was the isolated man in the previous representation clearly pronounced from theother figures by a difference in the height of the composition, so he is here pro-nounced by a great distance in the breadth of the composition.

By a close inspection of the last group behind the loner one recognizes a three-figure-group whose third figure from the right is nearly twice as strongly engra-ved as the other figures. At the same height there are two other figures touchingeach other with their left and right hands.

At the point of contact a circle can be seen. Exactly at this point a man standsupside down (foto K). It is the only figure in such a position. This „headstand“means death. So this concerns probably a fallen in a scene of fight.

The figure to the right, nearly 55 cm high, reminds one of an other geometricalfigure at the chalcolithic frescoes of Teleilat el-Ghassul. This probably femalefigure has a head held from a neck, being outlined by three horizontally engra-ved lines. The head wears two horns and is surrounded by concentric circles. Therest of the body is very schematically designed. The left hand of this figureshows only three fingers.

To the left there is probably a male figure, about 45 cm high, with the same sty-lized neck. The body shows the same characteristics like its „female“ pendant,but it has only one arm. On the other hand there is a kind of a third bone goingstraight out of this figures belly. The doublelines of the two figures on the leftcould mean-with a little bit of imagination wings.

Looking to the rockface more at the entrance of the crack one sees a secondgroup of engravings. Here there are about 1 m high ostriches which are designedin a schematic manner, nearly abstract(foto 5).

The heads on the necks with exceptional length are just outlined (foto 5). Thebirds are shown from different perspectives, what shows that the former artistgot a very high grade of an abstract realism in which he had designed the mainforms and movements of these animals. The creation of these engravings shouldbelong to the chalcolithic.

In the next vicinity of this ostriches can also be found a number of engravingsshowing signs of the tribes of nomadic Bedouins and some engravings frommodern times.


Salomon’s Pillars


Illustration 2 - The single parts are to be seen as fotos on the next pages.

Illustration 2

Illustration 1

Illustration 3


Illustration 3/1 - All engravings of the 2. picture area

Illustration 3/2 - Enlargement of the engravings of the 2. picture area Illustration 4 - Engravings of the 3. picture area and foto 5

Illustration 5 - Engravings of another picture area at the Araba plain with the samemotives as on ill. 1 and foto 1.


foto 2

foto 1


foto 3


foto 4


foto 5

foto AA



foto A

The World of Petroglyphs CD # 1-Copyright by StoneWatch 1998 PAGE 19foto B foto C


foto D foto E


foto F

foto G

foto Ff



foto Fff


foto H

foto Gg


foto J


foto Ggg


foto I


foto Ii

foto Iii



foto K

the world of petroglyphs cd # 1-copyright by stonewatch ... · the timna-valley nearly 850 m high...

Documents