(HAARETZ) -- It’s not every day that science and archaeology find confirmation of the Bible. But this seems to be the case with new research claiming that the biblical kingdom of Edom was much older than scholars previously thought. In fact it arose even before the formation of ancient Israel – just like it says in the Book of Genesis.
This unexpected conclusion was reached by studying that precious source of evidence in modern archaeology: ancient garbage.
Specifically, a team of researchers analyzed slag, the waste left over from metal smelting, at ancient copper production sites in the Aravah Valley, a region that spans the southern deserts of Israel and Jordan and was once the heartland of the Edomite nation.