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--- neheset [2024/05/16 19:47] – ken
+++ neheset [2024/10/04 11:09] (current) – removed ken
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-=====neheset=====
-נהשת
-'neheset' is generally considered to refer to "bronze", a metal alloy of copper and tin.
-The name seems to be related to the word [[nehes]], meaning "snake", possibly a reference to the "bronze snake" that Moses made in the desert.
-the word often appears alongside [[berezel]], ostensibly meaning "iron".
-One problem with this interpretation is brought up by Deuteronomy 8:9, which speaks of //a land in which without scarcity you will eat bread, nothing you will lack any a land whose stones [are] iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper//
-Notice that in this particular verse, 'neheset' gets translated as copper instead of bronze. This is because it is not possible to dig bronze out of a hill. Bronze does not occur in nature but must be refined and smelted from copper and tin.
-The [[timeline]] is also somewhat problematic. 'Neheset' first appears in Genesis 4, crediting Tubal-Cain as the first worker in bronze and iron. Archaeologically, the transition from the Bronze Age technologies to Iron Age technologies took place between 1200 B.C. and 600 B.C., depending on the region. Although precise dating of events in the early biblical stories is difficult (assuming they are based on historical events), the lifetime of Tubal-Cain predates any known archaeological evidence for iron use by a minimum of approximately a thousand years.
-We might need to adjust our assumptions of which words refer to which metals and/or alloys.
-Numbers 31:22 will likely prove useful for further analysis, as it apparently refers to bronze, tin, and iron, as well as lead, gold, and silver.