Archaeologists link 3,000-year-old donkey dung to King Solomon's wealth

A 3,000-year-old donkey dung that was discovered in an ancient mining camp in Israel's Timna Valley has given archaeologists more insight about the biblical king Solomon and the source of his legendary wealth.

The dung, which has been preserved by the valley's arid climate, was discovered last year by the team of Erez Ben-Yosef, an archaeologist from the University of Tel Aviv, while they were uncovering the remains of several walled structures at the excavation site.

Ben-Yosef said he thought that the dung was only a few decades old because it still contained undecayed plant matter.

"But the [radiocarbon] dates came back from the lab, and they confirmed we were talking about donkeys and other livestock from the 10th century B.C. It was hard to believe," he said, according to the National Geographic.

He noted that the site was initially linked to the New Kingdom of Egypt in the 13th and early 12th centuries B.C. before the excavation project started in 2013. But the high-precision radiocarbon dating of the dung revealed that the mining camp's heyday was the 10th century B.C., during the reign of biblical kings David and Solomon.

The Bible states that King Solomon had embarked on several building projects, including a temple in Jerusalem that was lavishly decorated with gold and bronze. Such buildings would have required large amounts of metal from industrial-scale mining operations, but the Bible is silent about the locations of such camps.

In the 1930s, American archaeologist Nelson Glueck announced that he discovered the famous mines in the Arabah valley. Other archaeologists who followed in his footsteps argued that David and Solomon were not as powerful as the Bible claims, but they were merely chieftains who were not capable of organizing major mining operations.

Discoveries in past few decades, as well as the recent find in the Timna Valley, may vindicate Glueck's faith in the Biblical accounts.

Glueck discovered the Slaves' Hill site in 1934 and named it as such because he believed it bore all the marks of an Iron Age slave camp. It has not been linked to Solomon himself, but there is some indication that the region was home to a complex society, most likely the Edomites, the ancient Israelites' antagonists.

Some scholars doubt the scriptures account of King David marching his armies deep into the desert to engage the Edomites. However, Ben-Yosef said that the fortified walls he discovered around the smelting camp suggest that it was very likely a military target.

He noted that if the Biblical account of David prevailing against the Edomites is accurate, the biblical King may have been in the position to demand tribute.

"There's a serious possibility that Jerusalem got its wealth from taxing these mining operations," he said.

Ben-Yousef also made another important discovery about the dung samples. His team was able to determine the animal's diet through the seeds and pollen spores that were still intact in the dung. The results indicated that the feed was imported from an area more than 100 miles to the north, near the Mediterranean coast, which is about 190 miles from Jerusalem. In the ancient times, the trip would take two weeks by donkey.

According to Ben-Yousef, more than 1,000 tons of smelting debris have been uncovered on Slaves' Hill.

"Until recently we had almost nothing from this period in this area. But now we not only know that this was a source of copper, but also that it's from the days of King David and his son Solomon," he said.