There's a new study that suggests, actually not so much: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42513706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42513706 ("Ancient

There's a new study that suggests, actually not so much: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42513706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42513706 ("Ancient copper industry in King Solomon's mines did not pollute environment") - "...We took hundreds of soil samples from both sites for chemical analyses, creating high-resolution maps of heavy metal presence in the region. We found that pollution levels at the Timna copper mining sites are extremely low and confined to the locations of the ancient smelting furnaces. [...] The new study contradicts a series of papers published since the 1990s about pollution caused allegedly by the ancient copper industry."