Timna Valley Park description and photos - Israel: Eilat (Topic)

Timna Valley Park description and photos - Israel: Eilat. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The name in English is Timna Valley Park.

Photo and description

Timna Nature Reserve is a deserted valley north of Eilat, surrounded by steep cliffs. Legend has it that it was here that the famous mines of King Solomon were located.

The valley lies in a tectonic fault, which exposed the outcropping of minerals containing copper, iron, sulfur. Iron paints rocks red, copper green, sulfur yellow. One hundred million years ago, this arid land was the bottom of an ancient sea, thick sedimentary layers formed here. The properties of the rocks are different, and over millions of years water, wind and sun have sculpted a truly alien relief. The reserve is full of natural sculptures of the most bizarre forms. There are huge stone "Lion" and "Sphinx", soaring in the air "Mushroom" on a thin leg, many miraculous arches. There is a Screw Hill, belted by a real spiral staircase. The Solomon Pillars, colossal natural columns of red sandstone, make a strong impression. The height of a twenty-storey building, they rest, as on pillars, on relatively small boulders.

Timna was well known to the ancient Egyptians. Ancient images of camels, chariots, warriors with axes and shields, ibex, ostriches, deer were found on the rocks. At the Solomon pillars, an image is carved on the rock: Pharaoh Ramses III makes an offering to the goddess Hathor. Nearby - the ruins of the temple of the celestial, which is thirty-five centuries old.

The appeal to the patroness of miners Hathor is not accidental: Timna is famous for the world's oldest copper mines. Copper − the first metal used by man to make weapons and tools. In the thirties of the last century, archaeologist Nelson Gluck suggested that it was here that King Solomon mined it (X century BC). Whether it's true or not, the name - King Solomon's mine - stuck. Metallurgy originated in Timna six thousand years ago and reached its peak during the time of the pharaohs from the XIV to XII centuries BC. e. The Egyptians, skillful engineers, cut through narrow tubular shafts with leg supports. They mined ore from a depth of up to 30 meters. There are thousands of such mines in Timna. You can see the original tools used by the ancient miners, their furnaces.

Copper is not the only wealth of Timna. Eilat stone has been mined here since ancient times, a semi-precious mineral, to which copper compounds give an amazing blue-green color.

The flora and fauna of the reserve are not rich. Here grows wavy acacia with fruits in the form of twisted pods, Small desert wolves and mountain goats live.

You need to come to Timna by car: you can't walk much in the sultry desert, and asphalt roads for cars are laid throughout the park. The routes are marked with many signs. In addition to natural attractions, it makes sense to look at a copy of the Tabernacle - a sanctuary in which, according to the Bible, the Jews kept the Ark of the Covenant during their forty-year wandering in the desert. At the end of the route, tourists can relax in an oasis by an artificial lake (you cannot swim, but there are pedal boats) and fill a plastic bottle with the colorful sands of Timna as a keepsake.

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Topic: Timna Valley Park description and photos - Israel: Eilat.