Park Timna
Timna Valley Park is a national park in the Negev desert of Israel and home to the world's oldest copper mines. It is located in the southwestern Arabah, approximately 25 km north of Eilat, at the southern tip of Israel. The park is noted for its natural sandstone formations, including King Solomon’s Pillars, the “Mushroom,” and the “Arches." The copper mines are at least 6,000 years old and were worked almost continuously by the Egyptians, Midianites, Romans, Nabateans, and Umayyads, among others. Ancient mine shafts and rock carvings, a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, and a replica of the biblical Tabernacle are some of the sites the national park offers to its visitors, in addition to its natural archaeological formations. Timna Lake, created by the Jewish National Fund within the park, provides many family activities for tourists, as well as shopping and dining.[1] The remains of the mines were discovered at the end of the 19th century, but scientific and public interest were minimal until the 1930’s, when American archaeologist Nelson Glueck theorized that the mines were connected to King Solomon. Excavations from 1959 to 1990 allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the history of the copper mines from 4,000 BCE to the Middle Ages.[2]The most striking and well-known formation in Timna Valley is Solomon's Pillars. The pillars are natural structures that were formed by centuries of water erosion through a crack in the sandstone cliff until it became a series of distinct, pillar-shaped structures.[1] They caused a surge of attention when American archaeologist Nelson Glueck claimed that the pillars were related to King Solomon in the 1930s and gave them the name "Solomon's Pillars." No information has proved this theory, and generally it is not accepted. However, the name stuck, and the claim gave the valley the attention that helped bring about the excavations and current national park. The pillars are known to be the stunning backdrop for even
Size: 4032px × 6048px
Location: Negev Israel
Photo credit: © yoel harel / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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