The ancient history of Sardinia is the protagonist in the Top 10 of the major archaeological discoveries connected to the Bible of 2022, compiled by the prestigious Armstrong Institute, based in Israel.
A discovery not only capable of "rewriting" knowledge on commercial traffic, but also of confirming the "historicity" of some references contained in the Holy Scriptures . And to demonstrate that the metals mentioned in some biblical passages most likely came from the island .
It all starts from a study conducted by a team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in tandem with that of Haifa , focused on a ship sunk off the coast of the city of Caesarea between the 13th and 12th century BC , whose wreck was identified in the late 1980s.
LEAD INGOTS – The research focused on the cargo carried by the boat and in particular on some lead ingots, recently subjected to isotope analysis and studies. The results of the tests - published in February last year in the Journal of Archaeological Science - have shown that around 3,200 years ago Sardinia was already exporting minerals to other lands bordering the Mediterranean .
The lead used to make the ingots came in fact from the mines of the Iglesiente and would have been sent by ship to Cyprus. Here the Sardinian lead would have been processed and loaded onto another ship, then sailed to some other port in the eastern Mediterranean, but never reached its destination, due to a shipwreck off the Israeli coast.
THE SCRIPTURES – But the results of the analyzes on the lead ingots, in addition to providing precious clues in support of the thesis of the ancient and flourishing traffic of metals which saw the Island as the protagonist , are also giving confirmation of the fact that some passages of the Bible, which would have been written in that period, have precise foundations in reality.
The passages in question are contained in the Book of Judges and in Deuteronomy, but also in Numbers and in Ezekiel - and concern the Israelite tribes of Dan and Asher , Jacob's fifth and eighth son respectively, settled, in the period in question, precisely in the area where commercial ships transited, including the one sunk in Caesarea.
Songs that refer more or less explicitly to naval trade and commerce, but also to lead and other metals, which came precisely from Sardinia and, it seems, even from Cornwall.
Examples are also cited, such as Deuteronomy 33 – 24-25: «Blessed be Asher among the children of Israel! (...) The bars of its doors are of iron and bronze and your strength lasts as long as your days!».
And Numbers 31:22, which refers to "gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead," as does the prophet Ezekiel (22:20).
The lead and perhaps also some of the other metals mentioned in the Bible would, as mentioned, be those extracted from the mines of Iglesiente, which, over three thousand years ago, were then exported to the most remote corners of the Mediterranean.
A traffic that would have been so flourishing that it also ended up in the oral and then written testimonies of the period, later merged into the Holy Scriptures.
(Unioneonline/lf)