King Solomon's mines

this is pretty cool...

Mine from King Solomon's Time Discovered

Researchers led by Thomas Levy of the University of California, San Diego, and Mohammad Najjar of Jordan's Friends of Archaeology, discovered a copper-production center in southern Jordan that dates to the 10th century B.C., the time of Solomon's reign.

The discovery occurred at Khirbat en-Nahas, which means "ruins of copper" in Arabic. Located south of the Dead Sea, the region was known in biblical times as Edom.

Research at the site in the 1970s and 1980s indicated that metalworking began there in the 7th century B.C., long after Solomon.

But Levy and Najjar dug deeper and were able to date materials such as seeds and sticks to the 10th century B.C.

Their findings are reported in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.