Timna Midianite Shrine and Copper Serpent

Excavation distinguished an Egyptian Hathor temple from a later, smaller tented sanctuary phase associated with Midianite/Qurayyah painted ware. A 12-centimeter copper serpent with traces of gilding was excavated inside the naos among metal and votive objects. The research trail begins with the stated shelfmark, excavation area, or institutional catalog entry and then works outward to editions and historical synthesis. That order matters because a familiar title can conceal several physical witnesses, phases, or proposed identifications. This dossier therefore keeps the documented find or manuscript separate from related examples and records what is known about custody, recovery, and publication. Where the original excavation or discovery was imperfectly recorded, that loss of context is treated as evidence limiting the claim rather than as a gap to fill imaginatively.

Excavation distinguished an Egyptian Hathor temple from a later, smaller tented sanctuary phase associated with Midianite/Qurayyah painted ware. A 12-centimeter copper serpent with traces of gilding was excavated inside the naos among metal and votive objects. Description here focuses on observable or published features: material, writing, architecture, assemblage, surviving contents, and catalog identity. It does not reconstruct missing lines, rooms, owners, or rituals unless the cited edition explicitly argues for them. Names and sigla are retained because they let a reader locate the same witness across catalogs that use different conventions. The object is significant as a particular artifact, not as a visual stand-in for an entire people, century, or theological position.

Thirteenth–twelfth century BC Dates are evaluated through the methods available for this witness—stratigraphy and associated finds for excavated contexts, and paleography, codicology, linguistic comparison, or documented collection history for manuscripts and inscriptions. Those methods normally produce ranges rather than exact years. Historical synchronisms are used only where the source itself or a secure archaeological horizon warrants them. The record therefore distinguishes the date of the surviving copy or object from the possible date of a text, tradition, occupation, or event that it preserves.