Hi Mr. Collins,
I have been reading your book, The Origins and Empire of Ancient Israel, and I have a few questions to clarify some of the ideas. I am very interested in the topic and I appreciate all the work and research you have done to put this series together. The question that I had was in chapter 5 where it discusses the ancient copper mines in the Great Lakes area. I was wondering how the universities know that the mines were exhausted around 1000 B.C., and is there any chemical evidence that the smelter found at Ezion-Geber used the ore from the Great Lakes region?
Scott
MyReply
Dear Scott,
I’m glad you are enjoying my book, The Origins and Empire of Ancient Israel. It is my view that most universities don’t even know about the ancient Great Lakes copper mines because politically-correctness has removed knowledge of pre-Columbian artifacts, inscriptions, mining works, etc. from modern textbooks.
On page 179 of my book, I cite inscriptions found in Canada which indicate there was a copper trade across the Atlantic between ancient Scandinavia and ancient dwellers in Canada as early as 1700 BC. Former Harvard professor, the late-Dr. Barry Fell details these inscriptions extensively in his book, Bronze Age America. On page 83 of my book, I include a quote from Dr. Fell’s aforementioned book that the extensive amounts of copper mined from the ancient Great Lakes mines were not seen used by any culture in the Americas, leading some archaeologists to wonder if the copper was shipped overseas. This is exactly what I assert in my book as King David of ancient Israel was amassing innumerable quantities of copper for the Temple project and he had to import them from somewhere other than his own domain. David’s close alliance with the Phoenicians would have provided the large vessels needed to transport the ores. On p. 261 of Barry Fell’s book, Bronze Age America, he wrote that “Michigan Mining and Technology” conducted two expeditions at the Great Lakes copper mines and their radiocarbon-dating tests indicated “the mines had been operated between 2000 BC and 1000 BC.” A radiocarbon date of 1000 BC when the mines were worked out corresponds to King David’s reign in ancient Israel which then had a voracious appetite for copper ore. Dr. Fell’s book states the mining engineers conservatively estimated that “at least 500 million pounds of metallic copper were removed” from the ancient Great Lakes mines.
I do not know if any chemical analysis has ever been done on the copper residues at Ezion-Geber.
Steve
