The End of Arabah Copper Production and the Destruction of Gath: A Critique and an Alternative Interpretation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent research has proposed that the Philistine city of Tell es-Safi/Gath was centrally involved in the copper trade from Faynan and Timna in the Wadi Arabah, and that the end of Arabah copper production in the second half of the 9th century bce should be attributed to the destruction of Tell es-Safi/Gath by Hazael, after which Cyprus replaced the Arabah as the major source for Levantine copper. This paper argues that the assumptions underlying this interpretation are not supported by the evidence. Gaza, not Tell es-Safi/Gath, was the main terminus for the Arabah copper trade; the termination of copper production in the Arabah was not an abrupt end caused by external intervention, but the result of a long process of decrease in administrative control and abandonment of copper production sites from the early 9th century bce; Hazael’s motivation in destroying Tell es-Safi/Gath was more likely owing to its size and dominance of the region, and its economic power through olive oil production; Cypriot copper production had already intensified in the late 10th and first half of the 9th centuries bce, while Arabah copper production was still at its peak. An alternative and more complex explanation for the end of copper production in the Arabah emerges from this re-evaluation. The Arabah industry may have lacked the leadership and administrative infrastructure to compete with the renewed Cypriot trade. It continued to produce copper and probably traded it to established markets, but finally petered out by the end of the 9th century bce.