A copper ore smelting plant operated about 6,500 years ago in a neighborhood in Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negevm desert, according to a new study by researchers at Tel Aviv University and the Israeli Antiquities Authority. .

Conducted over several years, the study began in 2017 in Beer Sheva, with the discovery of the workshop during emergency archaeological excavations carried out by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, to protect endangered antiquities.

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Extensive research has revealed that at the archeological site in the Neveh Noy neighborhood of Beer Sheva, a device that revolutionized humanity was used for the first time in the world : the oven .

"The excavations revealed evidence of domestic production from the Chalcolithic period, about 6,500 years ago. Surprising discoveries include a small copper smelting workshop, a small tin plant in which copper ore melted, and a lot of copper slag, ”said Talia Abulafia, director of excavations at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. (IAA).

Although metalworking was already a practice in the Chalcolithic period, the tools used were still made of stone. The word "chalcolithic" is a combination of the Greek words for "copper" and "stone."

The copper mine was brought from 100 kilometers away

Analysis of the ore isotopes from the shards of the kiln shows that the raw ore was brought to the Neveh Noy district of the Faynan Valley, located in present-day Jordan, at a distance of over 100 kilometers from Beer Sheva.

In the Chalcolithic period , when copper was first refined, the process was done away from the mines, unlike the predominant historical model by which the kilns were built near the mines, for practical and economic reasons. Scientists believe that the reason was to keep the technological secret.

"It is important to understand that copper refining was the cutting-edge technology of that period. There has been no more sophisticated technology in the entire ancient world, "said Professor Erez Ben-Yosef of the Department of Archeology and Ancient Civilizations in the Middle East, Tel Aviv University.

"Throwing pieces of ore in a fire will not get you anywhere. You must have specific knowledge for building special ovens that can reach very high temperatures, while maintaining low oxygen levels, "the professor added, quoted by Science Daily .

According to him, the people who lived in the area of the copper mines traded with the Beer Sheva members of the Ghassulian culture. This culture stretched from the Beer Sheva Valley to southern Lebanon today and seems to have mastered copper technology because they made various objects, some for ritual purposes. Some of these objects were previously discovered at Nahal Mishmar, and are now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

An elite had the secret of copper production technology

A chemical analysis of the debris indicates that each workshop had its own special "recipe" that it did not share with its competitors. It would seem that at that time there was water in the Beer Sheva Valley all year round, making it a convenient location for melting copper.

Prof. Ben-Yosef also notes that, even in the Chalcolithic settlements that had stone and copper tools, the secret of shining metal processing was held by very few members of an elite. "At the beginning of the metallurgical revolution , the secret of metal processing was kept by expert guilds. All over the world, we see metallurgical neighborhoods in Chalcolithic settlements, like the neighborhood we found in Beer Sheva, ”notes the professor.

Professor Erez Ben-Yosef / Photo credit: Institute of Archeology, Tel Aviv University

The research raises the question of how this society was hierarchized or socially stratified, because urbanization had not yet taken place.

Scientists believe that the findings in the Neveh Noy neighborhood strengthen the hypothesis of social stratification .

It seems that the company had a clearly defined elite, which had expertise and professional secrets, which allowed it to maintain its power because it was the exclusive supplier of shiny copper.

Copper objects, used only for rituals

Copper objects were not made for household use, but for rituals, having symbolic value. The copper ax, for example, made after the model of a stone one, was only an artistic object, respectively a cult one.

This finding suggests that, for everyday use, people then continued to use stone objects.

In the first stage of copper production , people used crucibles rather than furnaces, said Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, of the Department of Archeology and Ancient Civilizations in the Middle East, Tel Aviv University. However, the discoveries made in the Neveh Noy workshop show that “the technology was based on real ovens. This provides very early evidence for the use of furnaces in metallurgy and increases the possibility that the furnace was invented in this region ", the professor added.

However, this does not exclude the possibility that the invention of the furnace was done elsewhere, directly from crucible-based metallurgy.

Professor Ben-Yosef hopes that future discoveries will resolve the debate, but says that Beer Sheva played an important role in advancing the global metal revolution and that in the 5th century BC the city was a technological power for the whole region.

The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports .