מזון, מערך אספקה ומנחות פרי בממצא הבוטני מאתרי תקופות הברונזה המאוחרת והברזל הקדום בבקעת תמנע

In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the 'Hathor Shrine', Site 200) were excavated in the Timna Valley by Beno Rothenberg's 'Arabah Expedition'. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which apart from Site 200 were never published. This provides a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dating to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Since most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig, and olive), we suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits ("snacks"), consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation, like cereals and legumes, was probably carried out elsewhere in ephemeral tent encampments. The smelter's diet components appear consistently throughout the main activity period in the valley. Likewise, the food supply chain was established by the Egyptians and continued afterward. It was based on staple food imported from afar, complemented with wild edible fruits from the surrounding area. In addition, the shrine's plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).