Copper at the Neighbor's, Ivory at Yours

Beside Nahal Be'er Sheva, inside the area of today's city, there are two archaeological sites from the Chalcolithic period: Bir Abu Matar and Bir a-Safadi. They are about half a kilometer apart, and they are part of a group whose name is the Beersheba culture.

And what was found in them is not what you expect to find in a desert.

At Bir Abu Matar they found the smelting and casting of copper. The copper itself is not found here — it was brought from Wadi Feinan and from Timna, a great distance. That is, someone brought ore, fired a furnace, melted it and cast objects from it.

At Bir a-Safadi they found the working of ivory and of bone, and in a greater quantity than that found at the neighbors'. The ivory apparently came from Africa, and the ivory produce of the Beersheba region is the earliest made in the Levant.

And now notice what that means. Two settlements, half a kilometer from each other, more than six thousand years ago. One makes copper, the other makes ivory. They are not doing the same thing.

That is specialization, and it is a sign of an organized society. When every family does everything for itself there is no specialization. Specialization appears when there is enough confidence to rely on the neighbor — I make copper, you make ivory, and we exchange.

And where did the materials come from? From trade. Ore from the Arava, ivory from Africa. People who lived in houses dug in the ground, who raised flocks and wheat and barley and lentils, were connected to a network that reached two continents.

And where did they live? At first under the ground. The loess soil of the valley is soft, and it can be cut. They dug systems of rooms inside the ground and connected them with tunnels, and went down into them through a sloping shaft. Afterwards, when those rooms collapsed, they built half-underground building on top of them. And only at the third stage did they build houses above the ground, of unbaked bricks on stone foundations.

The settlement at Bir Abu Matar numbered at most about two hundred people. Two hundred people, and a copper furnace, and trade in ivory from Africa.

Today a small garden stands over Bir Abu Matar at the edge of the Neve Ze'ev neighborhood, and in it you can see the well and stones that mark remains from later periods.