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Eilat & Timna Culture in Sinai

Eilat Culture

The first evidently autonomous development of civilization in Sinai, about 4500-3800 BC, was named the Eilat Culture by Rothenberg. The humans of this early copper epoch probably immigrated from the Arabian Peninsula. According to their artifacts, they were seminomads who lived in primitive round, stone walls and made their living mainly as shepherds and flint workers, but sickle blades and flint axes indicate the beginnings of a primitive agriculture.

Timna Culture

Named after the first place such artifacts were found in the Timna Valley, this period from about 3800 to 2650 BC witnessed the development of the most important indigenous civilization in Sinai. The Timna people were also semi nomadic. Around their huts and tents they built round walls of boulders into which they drove their livestock at night. Fireplaces discovered during excavations seem to be the remains of protected farmsteads. The Timna people distinguished themselves by considerable cultural achievements. In addition to a more advanced flint technique they had their own ceramics, mined copper, and used copper tools. Moreover, they developed their own distinctive architecture and built a relatively large settlement that could be called a city.
With their stone buildings the Timna people created sights that tourists can still look at with astonishment today. The nawamis (sing, namusiyd} are round houses built of carefully laid, unworked stone slabs, with a small, often square entrance toward the west. Exceptional in this construction is the stratification of a double wall that made it possible to lay a flat, round, stone roof from the sides to the middle.

Some of these more than five-thousand-year-old roofs are still intact. The very small entrances suggest that the nawamis were not dwellings but tombs, reminiscent of ancient Egyptian tombs in their west-facing aspect. Burial objects made of copper point to close relations with the ancient pre-pharaonic Egypt. The most famous nawamis are thirty well-preserved tombs discovered by Rothenberg not far from the oasis Ain Hudra. Shortly before sunset, this collection of ancient stone buildings in the lonely, bizarre desert landscape presents a moving view. The nawamis are also associated with biblical history. Legend says that on their way through the desert, some hungry Israelites who had died of a surfeit of quails sent by God, were buried in nawamis. It is certain that the nawamis were used as tombs several times over.
The so-called 'desert dragons' are ancient traps for gazelles that probably date from the Timna period as well. These traps consist of remains of very long stone walls that come together at acute angles. The gazelles were driven into the narrow ends in order to kill them. Following the Timna people, the Bedouin used these traps until a few years ago. Today, the desert dragons have often been dismantled or covered with sand and are therefore hard to see.
West of Gabal Budhiya, not too far from Ras Sidr, Rothenberg discovered a remarkable field of ruins. Excavations exposed the remains of a surprisingly large settlement with a central square and cult buildings unique to Sinai. This settlement can be described as a city. Artifacts from this excavation once again indicate lively trade relations between Timna and Egypt.
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