Tel Megiddo (from Hebrew: תל מגידו; Arabic: تل المتسلم, Tell el-Muteselim) is the site of the ancient city of Megiddo (; Hebrew: מגידו; Greek: Μεγιδδώ), the remains of which form a tell or archaeological mound, situated in northern Israel at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley. During the Bronze Age, Megiddo was an important Canaanite city-state, and in the Iron Age, it became a royal city in the Kingdom of Israel. The site is renowned for its historical, geographical, and theological significance, especially under its Greek name Armageddon (Ἁρμαγεδών), which appears once in the Koine Greek New Testament in Revelation 16:16.
Excavations have unearthed 20 strata of ruins since the Neolithic phase, indicating a long settlement period. Occupied continuously from the early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE) to the Persian period (c. 332 BCE), Megiddo was strategically located at the crossroads of major ancient trade routes, making it a key center for trade, politics, and military affairs. Excavations have uncovered impressive fortifications, including massive city walls and gates, as well as palaces, temples, residential buildings, and a sophisticated water system. The site is protected as Megiddo National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Etymology
Megiddo was known in the Akkadian language used in Assyria as Magiddu, Magaddu. In Egyptian, it was Maketi, Makitu, and Makedo. In the Canaanite-influenced Akkadian used in the Amarna letters, it was known as Magidda and Makida. Koine Greek: Μαγεδών/Μαγεδδώ, Magedón/Mageddó in the Septuagint; Latin: Mageddo in the Vulgate.
Revelation 16:16 describes an apocalyptic battle at Armageddon (Koine Greek: Ἁρμαγεδών, romanized: Harmagedōn, a transliteration of the Hebrew Har Megiddo "Mount Megiddo"). From this appearance in a well-known eschatological text, the term "Armageddon" has come to signify any world-ending catastrophe.
Location
The tel is situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) southeast of Haifa Its strategic location at the northern end of the defile of the Wadi Ara, which acts as a pass through the Carmel Ridge, and its position overlooking the rich Jezreel Valley from the west gave it much of its importance.
The location of the Megiddo was widely debated by scholars throughout the 19th century, using Biblical, Egyptian and classical sources. Marino Sanuto’s map of 1322 CE showed Megiddo adjacent to Zububa. Edward Robinson, in his Biblical Researches in Palestine, identified it with Lajjun, due to its position as an important town, and its being close to the village Ti'inik: “The distance of Taanach from Legio is given by Eusebius and Jerome at three or four Roman miles; and it is somewhat remarkable, that Megiddo is rarely spoken of in Scripture, except in conjunction with Taanach; a circumstance which likewise implies their vicinity to each other... All these circumstances make out a strong case in favour of the identity of Legio and Megiddo; and leave in my own mind little doubt upon the point.” The PEF Survey of Palestine noted the same, but preferred the site of Mujedda near the village of Al-Ashrafiyya, writing that: “The site of Megiddo is generally placed at Lejjûn. The site of Khŭrbet Mujedda, near Beisân, fits well the requirements of the Egyptian accounts, and the Biblical account of the battle of Tabor (Judges iv.), when the kings are said to have fought 'in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo,' and again (Psa. lxxxiii. 9) to have 'perished in Endor.'” They followed with nine pages of various scholars’ debates regarding the location.
The debate over the location of Megiddo was settled in George Adam Smith's The Historical Geography of the Holy Land; the work's final edition explained it as follows:
The excavations which have proved Robinson's theory of the site of Megiddo as only approximately true were those on Tell el-Mutesellem by Schumacher in 1903-5, and recently renewed at Professor Breasted's suggestion by the Oriental Institute of Chicago University. They have shown so far that not Lejjun, but the Tell or Mound about a mile farther north is the ancient Megiddo. A wall has been traced almost all round the Tell with a city gate of well-dressed ashlar, presumed to be the work of Phoenician masons employed by Solomon but bearing some Hittite features. Some debris and ashes above this stratum suggest a destruction of the city. Above all this are two strata with walls mostly of unhewn stone assigned to the period of the N. Israel monarchy; and here was found a cartouche of the Pharaoh Shoshenk, Heb. Shishak or Shoshak, whose record at Karnak of the cities subjected by him includes both Megiddo (Makidu) and Ta'anach. Above those two strata there is nothing that can be dated later than 350 B.c. about which date therefore the inhabitants of Megiddo appear to have removed to a site a mile farther south on the same ridge which the Romans when they came fortified and called Legio.
History
Megiddo was important in the ancient world. It guarded the western branch of a narrow pass on the most important trade route of the ancient Fertile Crescent, linking Egypt with Mesopotamia and Anatolia and known today as Via Maris. Because of its strategic location, Megiddo was the site of several battles. It was inhabited approximately from 5000 to 350 BCE, or even, as Megiddo Expedition archaeologists suggest, since around 7000 BCE.
Neolithic
Yarmukian culture
Archaeological Stratum XX at Tel Megiddo began around 5000 BCE during the Neolithic. The first Yarmukian culture remains were found at this level in 1930s excavations, but they were not recognized as such then. These remains, found in Area BB, were pottery, a figurine, and flint items.
Chalcolithic
Wadi Rabah culture
The Chalcolithic period came next, with significant content around 4500–3500 BCE, as part of the Wadi Rabah culture, at the following base level of Tel Megiddo, as other large tell sites in the region, was located near a spring.
Early Bronze Age
Early Bronze I
Megiddo's Early Bronze Age I (3500–2950 BCE) was originally worked in 1933–1938 by the Oriental Institute, now the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Decades later, a temple from the end of this period was found and dated to Early Bronze Age IB (ca. 3000 BCE) and described by its excavators, Adams, Finkelstein, and Ussishkin, as "the most monumental single edifice so far uncovered" in the early Bronze Age Levant and among the largest structures of its time in the Near East.
Samples, obtained by Israel Finkelstein's Megiddo Expedition, at the temple-hall in the year 2000, provided calibrated dates from the 31st and 30th century BCE. The temple is the most monumental Early Bronze I structure known in the Levant, if not the entire Ancient Near East. Archaeologists' view is that "taking into account the manpower and administrative work required for its construction, it provides the best manifestation for the first wave of urban life and, probably, city-state formation in the Levant".
To the South of this temple there is an unparalleled monumental compound. It was excavated by the Megiddo Expedition in 1996 and 1998, and belongs to the later phase of Early Bronze IB, ca. 3090–2950 BCE. It consists of several long, parallel stone walls, each of which is 4 meters wide. Between the walls were narrow corridors, filled hip-deep with the remains of animal sacrifice. These walls lie immediately below the huge 'megaron' temples of the Early Bronze III (2700–2300 BCE). The megaron temples remained in use through the Intermediate Bronze period.
Magnetometer research, before the 2006 excavations, found that the entire Tel Megiddo settlement covered an area of ca. 50 hectares, being the largest known Early Bronze Age I site in the Levant. In 2014, the archaeologist Pierre de Miroschedji stated that Tel Megiddo covered around 25 hectares in the Early Bronze IA and IB periods, when most settlements in the region only covered a maximum area of 5 hectares, but that excavations suggest large sites like Tel Megiddo were "sparsely built, with dwellings disorderly distributed and separated by open spaces."
Early Bronze II–III
Tel Megiddo was still among the large fortified sites, between 5 and 12 hectares, during the Early Bronze II–III period, when its palace testifies that it was a real city-state "characterized by a strong social hierarchy, a hereditary centralized power, and the functioning of a palatial economy."
Stratum XVI (EB IIA-B; 3000-2750 BCE; decline).
Stratum XVb (EB IIIA; 2720-2500 BCE; peak economy). Contemporary to the 3rd and 4th dynasties of Egypt.
Stratum XVa (EB IIIB; 2500-2350 BCE; drier climate cause intensified centralization and urbanization). Contemporary to the 5th Dynasty of Egypt. The end of Stratum XV is marked by the abandonment of the temples as the economy declines.
Early Bronze IV
The town declined in the Early Bronze Age IV period (2300–2000 BCE) as the Early Bronze Age political systems collapsed at the last quarter of the third millennium BCE.
Stratum XIVB (EB IVA; 2350-2150 BCE). At the end of this period, the Fall of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334-2154 BCE) and Fall of the Old Egyptian Kingdom. 4.2 ka event.
Stratum XIVA (EB IVB; 2150-2020/2000 BCE). At the end of this period, the Fall of the Ur III Empire (c. 2112-2004 BCE). End of the Early Bronze Age. 4.0 ka event. The local water source at 'Ain el-Qubbi spring allowed the city to withstand shorter droughts.
Middle Bronze Age
Middle Bronze I
Early in the second millennium BCE, at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1950 BCE), urbanism once again took hold throughout of the southern Levant. Large urban centers served as political power in city-states.
Stratum XIII (MB I) can be subdivided into XIIIB (MB IA; 2020/2000-1900 BCE; semi-rural) and XIIIA (MB IB; 1900-1820 BCE; fortified settlement).
Middle Bronze II
By the later Middle Bronze Age, the inland valleys were dominated by regional centers such as Megiddo, which reached a size of more than 20 hectares, including the upper and lower cities. A royal burial was found in Tel Megiddo, dating to the later phase of the Middle Bronze Age, around 1700–1600 BCE, when the power of Canaanite Megiddo was at its peak and before the ruling dynasty collapsed under the might of Thutmose's army.
Stratum XII (MB IIA peak economy). In MB IIA the "Nordburg" belongs to Level XII. Compare with the nearby city of Shimron to the north.
Stratum XI (MB IIB-C/MB III/LB IA). In the Southern Levant, the Middle Bronze IIC (c. 1590-1550 BCE) corresponds with Late Bronze IA in the Northern Levant, where Mursili I of the Hittites around 1600 BCE destroyed the Great Kingdom of Yamhad (Aleppo) causing political turmoil.
In mortuary contexts, in a dental calculus of individual MGD018 (c. 1630–1550 BCE), at Tel Megiddo, turmeric and soybean proteins were found, which are South Asian products, suggesting he may have been a merchant or trader who "consumed foods seasoned with turmeric or prepared with soy oil in the Levant, in South Asia, or elsewhere," indicating the possible existence of an Indo-Mediterranean trade. Sesamum protein (sesame), another South Asian product, was found in individual MGD011 (c. 1688–1535 BCE).
Late Bronze Age
Late Bronze IA
In Egypt, the New Kingdom began with Ahmose I (r. 1570-1546 hCh) who along with his successors conducted military campaigns into the Southern Levant, destroying or subjugating many of the MB IIC settlements. At Tel Megiddo areas H and K, radiocarbon datings indicate the LBA began in the first half of the 16th century BCE (c. 1585–1545 BCE).
Stratum X (LB IA).
Late Bronze IB
Stratum IX (LB IB). Megiddo Stratum IX "was better protected than it was in the Middle Bronze Age, as the old brick wall was still in use, and houses that created a continuous outer stone wall were constructed on top of it". It was a vassal of the early 18th Dynasty until the reign of Hatshepsut.
At the end of Stratum IX (LB IB/IIA), during the Battle of Megiddo, the city was subjugated by Thutmose III (r. 1479–1425 BCE), and became part of the Egyptian Empire. The city still prospered, and a massive and elaborate government palace was constructed in the Late Bronze Age. Thutmose III's campaign is attested in Stratum IX at Tel Megiddo, a well fortified site in Late Bronze Age I.
Late Bronze II – Egyptian period
Stratum VIII (LB IIA). Palace. In the Amarna period (c. 1353–1336 BCE), Megiddo was a vassal of the Egyptian Empire.
The Amarna Archive (c. 1350 BC), contains letters from the time of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamen. Megiddo is mentioned in seven letters (EA 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 246 and 365). Biridya of Megiddo is mentioned in several letters from Megiddo (EA 242, 243, 244, 246, 247, 365) and from Taanach (EA 248).
The Amarna Letter E245 mentions local ruler Biridiya of Megiddo. Other contemporary rulers mentioned were Labaya of Shechem and Surata of Akka, nearby cities. This ruler is mentioned in the corpus from the city of 'Kumidu', the Kamid al lawz. This indicates that there were relations between Megiddo and Kumidu.
Stratum VIIA (LB IIB). Palace. During the reign of Merneptah, Hazor and several other cities including the Jezreel Valley rebelled against the Egyptians.