This painting by an ancient Egyptian artist shows Nubians bringing gold to the pharaoh. Obviously differences in skin color registered in the minds of ancient Egyptians, but what these differences meant and how they saw themselves is a subject of debate. Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, courtesy of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt.

I was already thinking about starting a new thread on ancient Egyptians when I received a comment that set the tone for where I wanted to go with the discussion. I've entered it here as the first comment in this new thread. (Those wishing to follow the earlier thread can find it posted January 14).

What this is all really about is human variation in ancient Egypt. Words like "black" and "white," which have been used a lot in the preceding thread, really don't have much meaning when it comes to understanding a population.  Here are a few thoughts to get the discussion going. These thoughts were pulled together by myself and some colleagues. We were assisted by S.O.Y. Keita (see our video of Dr. Keita), a scientist with keen insights into this topic and a fellow who is referred to several times in the first comment.

This sculpture from an Egyptian tomb is a good illustration of the problem in assuming that Egyptian artwork alone should guide us on what ancient Egyptians looked like. What would you say about the ethnicity of this Egyptian couple? They lived in the time of the great pyramid builders, about 2500 BC. Photo by Richard Nowitz.

Ancient Egypt: Origins in Space and Time
Some scholars continue to debate the skin color of ancient Egyptians, believing skin color can tell us something about the origins of Egypt’s culture and people. Most scientists agree that this region of Africa, the continent where modern humans evolved, was a melting pot of people for millennia. Human remains from the Nile Valley date back to between 30,000 and 50,000 before present.

Today, skin color is often used to group people irrespective of their language, culture, or national affiliations. To the best of our knowledge, skin color was not the primary factor of classification in ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians understood that culture, customs, and language play an important role in determining group affiliations. From artwork still visible in their temples and tombs, however, it is clear that the ancient Egyptians were aware of skin color differences within their own population and that they sometimes associated foreigners with particular skin colors.

Ancient Egyptians had their own ideas about where they came from and how their society achieved greatness. Today, scholars want to understand the origins and background of ancient Egypt and Egyptians using modern scientific and historical perspectives. This approach requires synthesizing evidence from geography, archaeology, linguistics, and biology.

Read the first comment and jump in!

Herod directs the massacre of babies in Bethlehem from a balcony in this early Renaissance painting by Giotto. It was one atrocity Herod may not have been guilty of.

I remember being terrified of Herod when I was a church-going little boy. He's the one who, according to the New Testament author/apostle Matthew, killed the baby boys of Bethlehem. According to Matthew, Herod did this to eliminate competition from a new Jewish king he'd heard about from the magi. Now I know that there were many Herods in the Bible, all bad mind you, but the guy responsible for the baby-killing is known to history as Herod the Great.

Few scholars think Matthew's account should be considered history. There is no contemporary account or archaeological evidence of the event. In early accounts the scale of the massacre varies widely. It was reported by the Byzantine and Syrian churches as 14,000 and 64,000 dead respectively. The problem is that Bethlehem at that time was a tiny town. The slaughter of its few baby boys under the age of two, perhaps as few as half a dozen at the time, would hardly rate as a massacre.

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish chronicler of events who lived shortly after Herod the Great, said plenty of bad things about this monarch, but nothing about a massacre in Bethelem. It is not clear why Josephus would not have mentioned this if it was as horrific an event as my Sunday School teachers told me it was.   

That Josephus does not mention the massacre is particularly interesting to me because it is through a careful reading of Josephus that architect-turned-archaeologist Ehud Netzer was able to find Herod's tomb in the Herodium, a large mound south of Jerusalem, after more than 30 years of searching. An account of his discovery can be read in this month's National Geographic. If Josephus was so accurate about where Herod was buried, maybe he was accurate about other things, too.

Among the things Josephus reported was that Herod was a murderous ruler. He didn't just kill in-laws, he banished his first wife and son and killed his second wife and two of his sons by her. He also wanted a host of Jewish dignitaries to be executed when he died. Luckily, that didn't happen. 

He was quite an opportunistic politician. He deftly navigated Roman waters and somehow survived the turmoil that followed the murder of Julius Caesar. Although Herod was a supporter of Mark Antony, he was able to explain to Octavian (later to become Augustus Caesar) that it was all a big misunderstanding and they ended up being best buddies. A temple Herod dedicated to Augustus in Caesarea Maritima didn't hurt the relationship.

In previous postings on this blog I've urged caution regarding the claims of archaeologists announcing major Bible-related discoveries. There seems to be little scholarly objection to Ehud Netzer's claim that he has discovered Herod's tomb, or what's left of it. Just days ago Netzer also found some unique Roman-style paintings in the complex.

Ehud Netzer's work has brought a lot of new attention to Herod. It is refreshing to hear about Herod's accomplishments as a builder. But let's not forget he was a political creature not unlike the many cruel despots of his time. And he was someone quite capable of a massacre in Bethlehem, whether it happened or not.  I may never be able to call him Herod "the Great."

Events at the end of the last Ice Age triggered the extinction of mastodons (left), mammoths and other large animals. A new study suggests that they were crowded out of Earth's ecosystem by the energy requirements of the growing biomass of humans and domesticated animals. Art by Raul Martín.

Have you ever considered yourself part of the megafaunal biomass? Anthony Barnosky of the University of California at Berkeley does and he's counted himself, and you, into estimates of the biomass of all large animals and humans living on Earth today and during the past 1 million years.

He has proposed in a paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, that the stage is set for a megafaunal extinction that will make the loss of woolly mammoths, sabertooth cats and other large animals at the end of the last Ice Age seem like a minor blip in the paleontological record.

The biomass of a species leaves an energy footprint on the ecosystem. This makes intuitive sense, but it gained significance for me when Barnosky described what this might have to do with extinctions. The way he looks at the extinction event at the end of the last Ice Age (around 10,000 BC) is that the human population reached a point  where its biomass and associated energy needs overwhelmed the other megafauna (defined as animals over 40 kg or 88 lbs). At that point, Barnosky argues, the planet switched to a "new normal" where humans and their few species of domesticated animals monopolized the ecospace previously occupied by many different wild animals.

This is where it gets interesting. Barnosky's studies show that megafaunal biomass has been about 200 billion kilograms (about 220,000 million tons) for the last million years. As human biomass grew during that time other species gave ground, thus maintaining a balance.

At the end of the last Ice Age (aka. the last major global warming event) pressure on the ecosystem from a  growing human biomass contributed to the collapse of the million-year-old balance. The collapse resulted in Earth's megafaunal biomass dropping to half its previous levels. 

It took until the onset of the industrial revolution for megafaunal biomass to get back to pre-crash levels. But humans and domesticated animals were its major component. Since then, the growth of biomass has surged out of control. The reason is that new energy—primarily from fossil fuels—is being pumped into the system, artificially increasing the carrying capacity of the ecosystem.

Modern megafaunal biomass, seen stretching to the horizon in this picture from India, is seven times the level it has been for the preceding million years. Photo by John Scofield.

Barnosky wonders how long that can continue. Our current megafaunal biomass, comprised of billions of people, sheep, cows, pigs, etc... stands at over 1,540,000 million tons. Some estimates have oil running out in 50 years, natural gas in 200, coal in 2000. Our megafaunal biomass is primed for a megacrash.

Barnosky tries to put a positive spin on things; he's not a doomsayer. But the last line of his abstract is the message we need to take home. He says, "...a near-future biomass crash that will unfavorably impact humans and their domesticates and other species is unavoidable unless alternative energy sources are developed to replace dwindling supplies of fossil fuels."

So, if you needed incentive to get on the alternative energy bandwagon, there it is. If we can manage the transition from fossil fuels to alternatives smoothly so there's no energy lapse, even a temporary one, we can avoid the crash and maybe slow down global warming to boot. Manage it poorly and we get the biomass crash...and we'll still have to develop the alternatives, unless we're one of the megafauna that go extinct.

Barnosky's science may be scary, but this is a great example of why studying the past is important for our future.

Cambodian soldiers were posted on monuments at Preah Vihear temple in June 2008. Months later, a flare-up of tensions with Thailand over ownership of the temple left some of them dead. Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP© Getty Images.

Preah Vihear Temple is a Khmer temple that sits atop a spectacular 1,700 foot cliff along Cambodia's northern border with Thailand. It also sits on one of the hottest points of tension between the two countries. A century long dispute about the border and ownership of the temple is boiling over.

In 1962 a ruling by the International Court of Justice in The
Hague awarded ownership to Cambodia. Thailand's government reacted
angrily but by the mid-1960s it looked like the two countries would
peacefully accept the new ruling. Then, decades of civil war made this
region one of the most dangerous on earth.

In July 2008, Preah Vihear was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. By mid-October a clash between Thai and Cambodian troops stationed at the site left several soldiers dead. Both countries are bracing themselves for the worst. Cambodia plans to increase its military budget to $500 million, a figure that represents 25 percent of government spending and an increase of 70 percent over the preceding year, according to a New York Times report .

What a tragedy that just as Preah Vihear makes the grade as a world class site to be protected it falls victim to its own importance. I shudder at the site of military equipment and troops perched on the ruins and hope the powder keg can be defused.

The political fuss at Preah Vihear also diverts attention from a huge problem in the region, which is protecting cultural heritage from looting for the antiquities trade. The thousands of headless buddhas and asparas one can see at Angkor and other popular monuments are just the tip of the iceberg. According to Heritage Watch, a nonprofit organization founded in response to an increase in looting in Cambodia, the problem has now extended into numerous prehistoric settlements and graveyards that pepper the countryside. According to a study of reported looting incidents conducted by Heritage Watch, it appears that many looted items are smuggled into Thailand across the same northern border that Preah Vihear sits on. They then proceed to Bangkok.

The Khmer and English versions of an education anti-looting comic book perpared by Heritage Watch. Courtesy of Heritage Watch.

Heritage Watch is fighting the war to protect cultural patrimony on all fronts. Among their efforts was designing a comic book called "Wrath of the Phantom Army." It provides a context for Cambodians to understand the value of the past. If only groups like Heritage Watch could get as big an increase in their budgets as the generals. Imagine what they could do.

The Faynan district of Jordan is known for its rich copper ore deposits. A three thousand-year-old industrial scale metal production operation in the region is now being touted as "King Solomon's mines." Photograph by Kenneth Garrett.

Have King Solomon's Mines been discovered? Some months ago we had an interesting discussion here about how a layperson can judge whether such fantastic claims concerning biblical archaeology are great stuff or hooey. We applied a sort of litmus test to these claims. The first part of the test is to ask whether the report was presented in a peer-reviewed scientific journal or if it was "published" by press conference. The second part of the test is to ask whether the claimant has a history of other sensational claims. If there was no peer-reviewed scientific publication and the report came from someone who has a habit of making fantastic claims, our little test suggests it should be held with suspicion. Simple as that.

Yet we didn't account for another possibility. That is when the media goes wild with a story. This is what happened this week when National Geographic grantee Tom Levy and colleagues announced new radiocarbon dates for an ancient copper production facility, Khirbat en-Nahas in the Faynan region of Jordan. Levy is a respected scientist and published his findings in a respected journal. He hasn't made other sensational biblically-related claims that I am aware of. So, as far as our existing litmus test goes, Levy's claim should be taken seriously, BUT... if you look carefully at what Levy says in his paper and his media quotes, he never says he found King Solomon's Mines. It has been left for the media to make that connection. And boy, did they!

Now the world thinks that King Solomon's mines have been discovered. Levy's report was quickly picked up and splashed all over the world with headlines like:
Copper mine in Jordan could be King Solomon's—USA Today.com
Solomon's real mine? 3,000 years on, archaeologists uncover fabled site in desert—Daily Mail
King Solomon's Mines Rediscovered?-National Geographic News
King Solomon's mines found south of Dead Sea in Jordan-www.infolive.tv

What's the problem? The problem is that we don't even know if King Solomon is real. So, where does that leave his mines?

How did this happen? Let's look at Levy et al.'s  paper and the press release issued by Levy's institution, UC San Diego.

Levy's paper, which appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes how Khirbat en-Nahas, a well known metal production site in Faynan, was carefully redated. The new dates show the site was in use between the 12th century BC and the 9th century BC. King Solomon, if he was indeed a historical figure, probably lived in the 10th century BC. Levy's paper presents several other lines of evidence linking the site to this time period. One revealing line in the paper suggests "the question of whether King Solomon's mines have been discovered in Faynan returns to scholarly discourse."

The UC San Diego press release doesn't say Khirbat en-Nahas is King Solomon's mines, but it mentions Solomon four times and certainly doesn't discourage the connection. Levy is quoted in the press release saying, "we have evidence that complex societies were indeed active in 10th and 9th centuries BCE and that brings us back to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible narratives related to this period.”

To someone familiar with one of biblical archaeology's most contentious debates, the message in the paper and release is clear. But to the uninitiated, it is easily missed. The message is that Dr. Levy and his colleagues think that Khirbat en-Nahas provides indirect evidence that King Solomon existed. In a way, they are arguing that if all the cultural complexity associated with a big need for copper existed in the 10th century BC, then who needed it? Why not King Solomon? What they don't state explicitly is that there is little or no other evidence that Solomon ever existed as the powerful monarch described in the Hebrew Bible. There are no coins, no buildings, no harbors, no evidence of a powerful kingdom and nothing that says, "Solomon was here."

Levy could have been more clear on this point. Better informed journalists might have questioned how we could have found King Solomon's mines if we can't even find King Solomon?

I think that Dr. Levy is sincere in wanting Khirbat en-Nahas to contribute to the debate about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible regarding the 10th century BC. That's fine and welcome. But should he have taken a bit more care to guide reporters through the complexities of the issues in order to prevent sensationalism? Or is it the journalist's job to figure that out?

Great stuff or hooey? What do you think?

PS. Here's a link to a very informative video about Khirbat en-Nahas provided by UC San Diego. It does not mention King Solomon's mines. ;)