PERU? - CONJECTURE ON THE POSSIBLE SOURCES OF SOLOMON'S FABULOUS WEALTH

This man was given the key to wealth and power.  It is no mystery that he controlled great fleets of ships and that the copper alloy/bronze for the pillars of boaz and joachim on the front of the great temple of Solomon, came from the mines of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The descendants of Jared mined it for him.  He had access to the people of this continent (before the days of Lehi) until they removed themselves from the record by iniquitous acts.

Where did he get his gold from?  That remains the question.

Here is some interesting conjecture:

The first we hear of King Solomon's mines is in 1 Kings 9

26And a navy hath king Solomon made in Ezion-Geber, that is beside Eloth, on the edge of the Sea of Suph, in the land of Edom.
27And Hiram sendeth in the navy his servants, shipmen knowing the sea, with servants of Solomon,
28and they come in to Ophir and take thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and bring [it] in unto king Solomon.

(using Young's Literal Translation - to avoid argument of meanings)

The Sea of Suph refers to the Red Sea (the Greeks called it the Erythraean Sea, means same thing and included the Indian Ocean not just what we call the Red Sea today - this passage also calls into question the revisionists who claim that Moses only parted the Sea of Reeds, where it also says "Sea of Suph" because Ezion-Geber and Eloth are on an arm of the Red Sea, not the swampy area in Egypt) Four hundred twenty talents of gold amounts to 31,500 pounds (avoirdupois, not troy) or nearly sixteen TONS of gold!

We get more details in the other passages that refer to the ships of King Solomon and his friend King Hiram of Tyre (the chief Phoenician city of the day): 1 Kings 10

11 And also, the navy of Hiram that bore gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir almug-trees very many, and precious stone;
12 and the king maketh the almug-trees a support for the house of Jehovah, and for the house of the king, and harps and psalteries for singers; there have not come such almug-trees, nor have there been seen [such] unto this day.

(Now most scholars say the Almug trees are sandalwood, however the Jewish historian Josephus stated that it was a type of white pine, superior to any known in the Roman world) We note that there is a great amount of gold, Almug trees and precious stones; to continue:

13 And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire that she asked, apart from that which he gave to her as a memorial of king Solomon, and she turneth and goeth to her land, she and her servants.
14 And the weight of the gold that hath come to Solomon in one year is six hundred sixty and six talents of gold,
15 apart from [that of] the tourists, and of the traffic of the merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the land.
16 And king Solomon maketh two hundred targets of alloyed gold -- six hundred of gold go up on the one target;
17 and three hundred shields of alloyed gold -- three pounds of gold go up on the one shield; and the king putteth them [in] the house of the forest of Lebanon.
18 And the king maketh a great throne of ivory, and overlayeth it with refined gold;
19 six steps hath the throne, and a round top [is] to the throne behind it, and hands [are] on this [side] and on that, unto the place of the sitting, and two lions are standing near the hands,
20 and twelve lions are standing there on the six steps, on this [side] and on that; it hath not been made so for any kingdom.
21 And all the drinking vessels of king Solomon [are] of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon [are] of refined gold -- there are none of silver; it was not reckoned in the days of Solomon for anything,
22 for a navy of Tarshish hath the king at sea with a navy of Hiram; once in three years cometh the navy of Tarshish, bearing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
23 And king Solomon is greater than any of the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom,
24 and all the earth is seeking the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom that God hath put into his heart,
25 and they are bringing each his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, horses, and mules, the matter of a year in a year.
26 And Solomon gathereth chariots, and horsemen, and he hath a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, and he placeth them in the cities of the chariot, and with the king in Jerusalem.
27 And the king maketh the silver in Jerusalem as stones, and the cedars he hath made as the sycamores that [are] in the low country, for abundance.
{So we see that the amount of gold coming into the kingdom of Solomon was huge, and so much silver that it was as plentiful as stones in the streets!
We also know that the ships were not just sailing to Ophir but also to Tarshish:}

“And all the drinking vessels of king Solomon [are] of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon [are] of refined gold -- silver is not reckoned in the days of Solomon for anything; for ships of the king are going to Tarshish, with servants of Huram: once in three years come do the ships of Tarshish bearing gold, and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. And king Solomon becometh greater than any of the kings of the earth for riches and wisdom; and all the kings of the earth are seeking the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom that God hath put in his heart, and they are bringing in each his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and garments, harness, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.” (2 Chronicles 9:20-24, YLT)

The "navy" of Tarshish that Solomon built in Ezion-geber is not what WE would consider a "navy" today; for in other ancient sources (the Phoenician historian Philo) we learn that Hiram used 800 camels to haul the lumber to Ezion-geber, and built TEN ships. That may not sound like much, but remember that a cargo of gold and silver does not require many ships; and the great voyage of Queen Hatshepsut (of Egypt) to the "mythical" land of Punt, involved only FIVE ships, and these were much smaller than a "ship of Tarshish" which is described in Isaiah and Ezekiel as an ocean-going vessel with masts that towered over the sea.
So where were the ships of Solomon and Hiram going? We are told they were sailing to Ophir and Tarshish; of course scholars have proposed all sorts of locations for both of these places. Josephus states that it was simply Tarsus in Asia Minor, however Tarsus was not founded until a century AFTER Solomon and Josephus was writing his history during the Roman conquest of his homelands so had a good reason NOT to tell the truth. Josephus also states that Ophir was simply Sophir (India) yet we know for a fact that India was NOT an exporter of gold in the time of Solomon, in fact India was such an absorber of gold that it nearly caused the Roman empire to go bankrupt paying for the goods of India. We can also safely rule out all other proposed locations like Arabia, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc as these places were easily reached by overland caravans, in far shorter time than three YEARS. No the location has to be a place very far away!

I had at first come to the conclusion that Solomon was not mining anything at all, just sending out trade missions. There is, after all, a site known today as the site of Ezion-geber, and this place had huge copper smelteries. So I thought, Solomon was simply mining copper in the Arabah (this is fact) smelting it in the vast forges he built on the island at Ezion-geber, (Jezirat Faraun) then trading it for gold, silver, precious stones, peacocks etc. Anyway back to where the heck are these places...

Tarshish has also been identified as Tarsis in Sardinia, where Phoenicians had smelteries set up - however there are no gold mines in that locality and the operations on Sardinia were fairly small scale, not enough to be producing five tons plus per year (the shipments Solomon received were the result of three years work each time). The Greeks wrote of an ancient Phoenician city in sw Spain near Gades (modern Cadiz) that they called Tartessus; this Tartessus was so rich in silver that the first Greek ships to visit and trade there even made up cast silver anchors so as to be able to carry more home! This Tartessus fits extremely well with Tarshish of the OT; and in fact we learn in the book of Jonah that it was possible to sail WEST to Tarshish (from Joppa) and to sail EAST to Tarshish from the Red Sea! A somewhat famous Atlantis-hunter has recently found the site of Tartessus (which he instantly proclaimed to be Atlantis) near the city of Cadiz.
The ancient Spaniards were convinced that Ophir was in fact Peru! Etymologically, the name Ophir means "land of fire" and the name Peru also means "land of fire" and the "ph" in ancient Hebrew can be pronounced as an "F" or as a hard "P". Some years ago, a famous explorer named Gene Savoy discovered ruins of an ancient city in Amazonia, Peru, which had glyphs which were identical to those which were written for the name Ophir.

We should note that clue we found in 1 Kings, that the ships took three years. The first Europeans to circumnavigate the world took almost exactly three years to do so (Magellan and Drake) and included some time for stopping, which doubtless Solomon's ships would have to do. There is a clue that this is what they were doing - for it does not make sense to sail from a Red Sea port heading for Tarshish in SW Spain, when you could simply sail west from Joppa and reach it in far less time. Also, the only potsherd ever found that had a record of Ophir on it was discovered in the site of an ancient Hebrew port (inside what it modern Tel Aviv) so this implies that the ships were departing from Ezion-geber, and sailing easterly, calling at various ports where they traded and obtained apes, ivory, spices, etc on their way to Peru where the mines output would be picked up, then continue on using the prevailing currents and trade winds (ancient ships were not too good at sailing into the wind, they could but not as well as modern sailing vessels) to return to Joppa.

We have to wonder how Solomon learned of the gold mines and other riches to be had? I found another ancient source that states King David (Solomon's father) built ships (no numbers given) in Eloth, which sailed to "an island" in the Red Sea (side note here, but there are no important gold deposits on any islands in the Red Sea) after he had conquered Edom which is where Eloth and Ezion-geber were. He almost certainly learned of the mines through his Phoenician allies, who had no port on the Red Sea so had to make very long and roundabout voyages prior to the conquest of Edom.

A discovery made by the US Geological Survey in Saudi Arabia has been proposed as the site of King Solomon's mines, known as the Mahd adh Dhahab, an ancient mine in central Saudi Arabia between Mecca and Medina. (Mahd adh Dhahab means "cradle of gold") This mine complex left millions of tons of tailings, and the tailings tested out at 0.6 ounces gold per ton! (I have not followed up on this but they were considering mining the tailings as it is pretty rich) These mines are old enough, in fact they are far older and were not a part of Solomon's empire - there are overland caravan routes which pass quite close by; the distance is some 700 miles from Jerusalem, and over 150 miles to the sea so it would have been ridiculous for ships to try to travel there. (First reported in Biblical Archaeology Review, Sept 1977 issue) This ancient mining complex may have been run by Solomon, as well as Egyptian pharaohs, Greek pharaohs, Arabian nomads etc but it is not likely this was Ophir.

Peru is well known today for the many rich gold mines there, and some intriguing finds have been made in ancient mines there too like a bronze crowbar; as no Amerindians made bronze, this item is solid proof that ancient visitors from the Old World had been there mining gold! So how did the Hebrews "lose" their mines? When Solomon died his son Rehoboam was made king, and the ten northern tribes requested some tax relief from the massive building projects etc that Solomon had imposed. Rehoboam rejected the advice of his father's advisors and listened to his young friends who told him to increase their burden, so the ten northern tribes rebelled successfully from the kingdom forming the new nation of Israel. Two tribes remained loyal (Judah and Benjamin) but they were unable to prevent Edom from revolting and lost the vital port. The later kings Jehoshaphat and Uzziah recaptured Ezion-geber, but Jehoshaphat's newly built fleet of ships were utterly wrecked in storms and Uzziah did not choose to build a new fleet. So contact was lost, over time.

So to anyone who wants to find the fabled lost mines of Solomon, I would say to head for the ruins of the ancient city now called Gran Pajaten, up in the northeastern part of Amazonas state, Peru, and start taking panned samples from the feeder streams of the Rio Abiseo. However be aware of the laws of Peru as to foreigners and prospecting, plus treasure trove laws and that the area is extremely remote and more than a little dangerous. (Dang, getting ideas again!)

I had never heard of the Jonathan Swift mines connected to King Solomon, however I would hesitate to use the "ancient Hebrew" coins found in Kentucky to make the connection - these were examined by the foremost expert in ancient Hebrew coins (Prof Meshorer in Israel, now deceased) and he stated they were modern fakes, produced in the 1800s and given to children as rewards etc for doing well in studies and such. Ancient coins are found in the Americas, numerous Roman coins but these are most likely lost in modern times (there are many collectors of ancient Roman bronze coins, they are quite common and cheap generally) and a few Greek (not common) as well as Punic and Numidian, these are harder to dismiss as being lost in modern times as they are not common nor terribly cheap, and few collectors of them - so why should we be finding Punic coins in eleven US states, Bimini, the Azores etc? Getting off topic, but would like to hear more of the connection between Swift and Solomon!

Thanks again for the replies, and I hope you all have a great day!

Oroblanco