Main Page

Welcome to the main page of the Timna Valley Database! :-)

Example of a site in the database Hathor

The Timna Valley is one of the oldest and best-preserved copper mining areas in the world. Since the late 1950s, it has served as a "field laboratory" for the study of ancient metallurgy and human activity in hyper-arid regions. Since 2012, a comprehensive archaeological study has been carried out by the Central Timna Valley (CTV) Project on behalf of Tel Aviv University [[1]] and led by Prof. Erez Ben Yosef [[2]]. This research, which includes extensive surveys and excavations, focuses on the application of new dating methods and analysis of technological and social processes from the genesis of human activity in the region during the Neolithic period [[3]] until the modern era. The extensive data collected in the current study as well as from the previous archaeological missions, namely the “Arabah Expedition” led by Beno Rothenberg [[4]], includes thousands of digital files, photos, maps, field report tables, results of laboratory analyses, etc., most of which are associated with a specific site inside the valley. Currently, the CTV Project is working on producing a GIS of the valley and its archaeology as well as publishing the final reports of its excavations as a printed monography. Since the published material will be very limited, the Project wishes to develop a digital database that will contain all the archaeological data collected in Timna by the current and past expeditions, which will be available to other researchers and the public. Together with the TAD team [[5]], we have been examining various options for building such a database, including the use of Wiki platforms like Wikibase and Wikidata.