The Importance of Travel

The Importance of Travel

This paper analyses the importance of travel from following two texts the term King Solomon's Mines that were made famous as the title to a 19th century novel, by Sir Henry Rider Haggard and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1869. It tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax. The original edition had no illustrations; the first illustrated edition was published by Hetzel with illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou. The mines in question would have been copper and located in Edom, now southern Jordan. Kings David and his son Solomon may have controlled the copper mines in the area.

King Solomon's Mines is a tourist complex run by Kibbutz Elifaz. It is an ancient copper mining district with mining activities since the Neolithic or better Chalcolithic. But the most important era was about 3,400 years ago, when the Egyptians created a large-scale copper industry here. Just the name of the mine is a little weird, as a connection with King Solomon 3,000 years BP is tenuous. It seems the name was chosen because of the adventure novel of the same name by Henry Rider Haggard, where the adventurer Allan Quatermaine searches for the legendary mines of King Solomon. The story has been picturised various times. But the mines in the book where diamond mines located in the heart of Africa. Mikhrot Shelomo ha-Melekh (King Solomon's Mines) is an archaeoloic site located at the top of a north-south-trending mesa. On an area 300m long and 130m wide, ancient mining structures from the Egyptian times can be seen. There are crude furnaces and slag heaps, the copper was mined in open cast mines. The ores were first roasted, which means they were heated without smelting. Then a so called Bessemer process was applied, with air blowing on the surface of the melting ore. This causes the oxidation of sulfur and carbon in the ore and thus creates pure metal. The process was (re)discovered in the 19th century in Germany by Bessemer and named after him, but it was mostly used for British iron ores. At Timna the hot desert winds which blow mostly from the north provided the necessary flow of hot air naturally. Most likely the wind was the reason why this process was discovered and used here so early. However, there is no underground tour, and it is also not possible to visit the closed modern mine to the east.

The sightseeing concentrates on the spectacular desert landscape with many strange formations of red sandstone rock. The martian landscape of Timna has mushroom rocks, strange wind erosion forms, arches, and the Ammude Shelomo (Pillars of Solomon), columnar rock formations at the northern wall of the Mesa. The traces of copper can still be seen on the walls. The area was mined for copper for eight millenia, ...