UNDERSEA ANTIQUITY
THE BIG DIG : Tom Levy ' s discoveries at Khirbat en-Nahas ( Arabic for " ruins of copper ") were featured in the NOVA / National Geographic
documentary Quest for Solomon ' s Mines . [ Inset ] Levy conducting fieldwork in the Faynan region of Southern Jordan .
team revealed new dates for industrialscale metal production in the area .
“ Prior to our work , scholars assumed that the area ’ s Iron Age was 600 to 500 B . C ., so any kingdoms mentioned in the Hebrew Bible before that had to be myth ,” Levy says — because they wouldn ’ t have been sufficiently organized or wealthy enough to qualify as kingdoms . But by pushing the Iron Age to the ninth and 10th centuries B . C ., in line with the Biblical account , Levy ’ s work has put those stories back on the table for re-investigation . For instance , it might have been copper , not gold , from ancient factories like those at Khirbat en-Nahas that powered Edom and the kingdoms of David and Solomon .
UC San Diego archaeologists like Tom Levy aren ’ t limited to land when studying long-lost civilizations . Crosscollaboration with experts at Scripps Institution of Oceanography now brings the search for ancient answers beneath the ocean .
“ Over the last 10,000 years , there has been a tremendous amount of environmental change , especially the rise of sea levels . There are hidden coastlines all around the world where civilizations and cultures flourished ,” says Levy , who is co-director of the new Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology ( SCMA ), a partnership between Scripps and the Department of Anthropology . Around the world , researchers with SCMA are studying the influence of marine environments on human cultures at key underwater and coastal archaeological sites . By understanding the role of the oceans in past human cultural development , scientists can put the present climate challenges of these and other vulnerable areas into a longterm context .
“ The seashore that we explore , use , and experience today is not the same as in the past ,” says environmental archaeologist Isabel Rivera-Collazo , an SCMA collaborator . “ There are lessons that we can incorporate into our modern knowledge to understand what we will be facing . … We can look at the past to understand and improve solutions to the present problem .”
Over the next two years , the center plans to launch a series of research projects studying climate change over the epochs in the Mediterranean , water dynamics in ancient South American and Puerto Rican civilizations , and in our own backyard , how changes in the California coast influenced prehistoric migration in North America . Learn more about SCMA and view current field expeditions at tritonmag . com / levy
— Brittany Hook
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