Chapter 1: What is the historical significance of Megiddo in relation to Armageddon?
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Hey all, welcome to the ancients. Spring is here. Summer is just around the corner in the UK. The weather is turning up and we are turning on the ancients today to Armageddon. Now, why do you ask? Well, it is no secret. We know how much you love it when we do episodes on ancient catastrophes and collapses. We've seen the stats.
Your Pompeys, your Maya collapses, your Sodom and Gomorrahs, your, or what else is there, Bronze Age collapses, prehistoric plagues, etc. Look, I get it. I am equally fascinated by those topics.
But the team and I realized a few weeks back now, we realized that we haven't ever covered one of the biggest carnage words in our dictionary, Armageddon, which has its own fascinating ancient story, the story of a biblical event, but more importantly, of an actual place. And that is what we're delving into today with a guest who certainly fits into the category of fan favourite on The Ancients.
He is none other than Professor Eric Klein. Let's go. Armageddon. Today the word immediately conjures images of the end of the world, of apocalyptic catastrophes, of God's final judgement. And Bruce Willis in an astronaut suit. But Armageddon isn't just a concept or a prophesized event. It's a place. An ancient city called Megiddo, situated in modern-day Israel.
Megiddo is to be the setting of the final cataclysmic battle between good and evil, where the armies of the world shall gather, at least according to the Book of Revelation. But Megiddo's story, it extends far further than its biblical significance.
Occupied for thousands of years from the Neolithic period right through the Bronze Age and Iron Age, before its final abandonment just over 2,000 years ago, this site was a key centre for trade, politics and military affairs in the ancient Levant, owing to its position on a crossroads that linked Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia.
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Chapter 2: How did Megiddo become a strategic location throughout history?
That's not a real place. I'm like, actually, it is. Come on, I'll show you it. So Megiddo is Armageddon. And our t-shirts from each season on the back, they said, I survived Armageddon.
Love it. And so basically this is a site now from archaeology that we're learning, we're continuing to learn more about. So it isn't just that it is a place, it's a place that actually there is extensive information coming out of the ground about.
Yes, even today, still. I mean, I... The Renewed Excavations, as they're called, which are a consortium headed by Tel Aviv University, they started in 1992. They really got started in 1994, and that's when I joined. And then after 20 years, I left the project in 2014, but it's still going today. So they are still excavating every other summer, usually odd-numbered summers.
But there is still lots of information coming out of the ground, and indeed, more so now than ever before, because they're using remote sensing, exact life sciences, radiocarbon, DNA. I mean, you name it, they're throwing all the new high-tech stuff out it. So the excavations at Megiddo are getting more and more and more interesting, in part because there's so much there.
I mean, there are 20 cities, one on top of another. Wow. covering 5,000 years of history.
Because we had just done the Trojan War as well, and that's many different layers of city settlements there.
That's only nine. Only nine? Only nine. This is at least 20. 20. Yeah, it starts back in the Neolithic and goes right up through, well, it goes almost until Alexander the Great, when he marched by, it was probably abandoned. But then the Romans, the Romans established one of their legionnaires camps right at the base of Megiddo, right, which is being excavated even today.
So in essence, on the site and just off of it, it's from Neolithic right through Romans. So it's like Jericho, one of those sites that's just continually used again and again and again in that area of the world. Exactly. I mean, I always tell my students that to have a successful site in antiquity, you need food, you need water, and you need defense.
And Megiddo has all three, very much like Jericho. And actually, as it grew over the years, it became even better for defense because you could see farther and farther away. So when excavation started at the mound in 1903, it was 110 feet tall. It's now about 70 feet tall because, as we'll talk about, Chicago took off the top couple of 20 feet or so.
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Chapter 3: What archaeological discoveries have been made at Megiddo?
So one of the reasons I think they picked this site for Armageddon for the penultimate battle, and I wrote about this, I had a book that came out in 2000 called The Battles of Armageddon. And I don't know if you'll remember, you're probably too young, but in the run-up to 2000, we had the whole Y2K scare. Everybody thought the world was going to end because of the computers and all that.
I had already been digging at Megiddo since 94 every other year. So 94, 96, 98. And I thought, let me write a book about all the battles that have been fought at Megiddo and publish it before Y2K and I'll make a fortune and I can retire. But as it turned out, I found out that there were 34 battles that have been fought there. And so it took me too long to write the book and I missed the Y2K.
It came out after that. So as a result, I couldn't retire. I'm still working, but so it goes. But what I figured is by the time that John would have had his revelation. There were already something like at least a dozen, if not more, battles that had already been fought including a number of ones that are mentioned in the Bible.
For instance, when Deborah fights Barak, it is by the river right by Megiddo. Saul and Jonathan are killed on Mount Gilboa, which is just down the valley from Megiddo. we've also got one of the earliest night battles is fought there. So by the time of John in the early centuries AD, they would have already known this to be a place with a huge history for battles.
And when you're looking around, where do you put the final couple of battles? Well, Jerusalem is saved for the final battle. And I think next to that, that Megiddo would have been the bloodiest place on earth that they knew of. And so I think they very deliberately picked it because of its history. But then, of course, after that, you continue to have battles, you know,
Saladin comes there and fights the Crusaders. The Mamelukes and the Mongols fight there. Napoleon fights at Mount Tabor just down the road. And of course, Lord Allenby fights in World War I there and actually mimics the tactics of Thutmose III from more than 3,000 years earlier. So at one point, I thought that I agreed with Napoleon
who supposedly said that the Jezreel Valley and Megiddo is the most perfect battlefield on the face of the earth. But I looked through everything, I think, that Napoleon wrote, and I can't find him having said that. I think he was actually talking about Belgium, but I can't prove that. So anyway, this is why I think Armageddon made its way into the New Testament.
Because they already knew that so many battles have been fought there, and they thought that one of the final ones would also take place there. So it makes a lot of sense to me to explain it that way.
I love the fact there's a Battle of Thermopylae in World War II, I believe, and a Battle of Megiddo in World War I. That's so interesting. Battle of Armageddon. mentioned the valley there. Can you give us a good sense of the location and just why it was such an important, such a strategic site for so many thousands of years back in Bronze, Iron, and even in Stone Age times?
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Chapter 4: What role did Thutmose III play in the history of Megiddo?
So basically, every invader that has come through that region has fought a battle at Megiddo unless the area simply gave in to them without a fight. So we've got battles all the way probably even back in the Neolithic already. But certainly by the beginning of the second millennium, we've got Canaanites fighting there.
And then all the way through, I think the last battle per se that I documented was 1967, or maybe even 1973, there were some air skirmishes because one of the airfields is right there in the valley. So they've been fighting there For 4,000 years. The geography is what dictates it, and that hasn't changed.
Just the people and the weapons have changed, but the fighting and the geography, that hasn't changed.
It's amazing to think that even in Iron Age times, more than 2,000 years ago, around that time, it was already well known as a battle site, hence the biblical link. So thank you for explaining that, Eric. But let's focus in on that battle of Thutmose III, the Egyptian pharaoh. So Eric, is it correct to say that this is the earliest recorded battle in history?
Yes, it is. Next question. Okay, fine. No, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yes, it is. But it depends on how you say it. It is the earliest recorded battle in history. Yes. It's not the earliest battle in history. That's when one Neolithic thug picked up a rock and bashed another one over the head. But it is the earliest one that is written down.
Because what it seems to have happened is that Thutmose III, when he came to the throne, In his first year, we think it's about 1479 BC, the Canaanite rulers rise up in rebellion, and he has to march up to Canaan to put down the rebellion. Well, he took along scribes with him. They kept a daybook, if you will, a diary, a campaign journal.
And then when they got back, they put up a concise version on the walls of one or more of the temples down in Egypt. So he says things like, we began marching after 10 days. We got to the site of Yechem, and we stopped and held a council. And this is what it says on the wall. So it is recording what happened. So we know precisely what happened, but it's from the Egyptian point of view.
So do you believe it or not? So if you want, I can tell very quickly what he says.
Please do. And also, so the enemy, because my mind immediately goes also to the Battle of Kadesh, where you do have the Hittite version of it as well. But that's Egyptians versus Hittites. With Megiddo, is it Egyptians versus local Canaanites? Is that what you think?
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Chapter 5: How did the biblical narrative shape the perception of Armageddon?
I don't know if you're planning to do that, but just in case you had that in mind, that's the best time. Yeah, the first year. Watch out, Dan. Yeah. So they march up, he says, in like 10 days. They march up to Yechem, and they stop, and they have a war council, because it seems that there are three ways to get to Megiddo from where they are.
There is the central way, which is the fastest, but also the most narrow, and therefore susceptible to ambush. And that comes right out of Megiddo. It's known as the Wadi Arra, the Nahal Irron, It's still used today to get up there. The other two ways are more roundabout. One goes around to the north. and comes out by Yochniam, and the other comes around to the south and comes out by Tanakh.
Well, his generals said, please don't go up the middle route. It's suicide, basically. Take either the northern route or the southern route. And Thutmose III tells us that he said to the generals, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, that's exactly what the Canaanites will be expecting, because
They know that I'm not that stupid, that I would go up the central route, you know, that would be, you know, committing suicide. And he said, but you know what? I am that stupid. I'm going to go right up there because they're not going to be expecting it.
And we're told in the inscription that they went one guy after the next, and it took like 12 hours, and they came out at Megiddo, and sure enough, it was unguarded. The Canaanites were at the northern and the southern border. entrances to the Jezreel Valley. They were not at the central part because they hadn't expected him. It was a surprise attack, and that was it. He captured Megiddo.
There is a battle when the Canaanites come too late, and he beats them. But he did make a major mistake, which he admits. he let his men stop to loot the camps of the Canaanite rebels, which were all around Megiddo. That allowed the people inside the city time to close the city gates, including hauling people up using ropes made of cloth and linen and all that.
And it then took them at least three months, if not eight months, to actually capture the city. So I tell my students the lesson is that if you're going to do this, capture the city first, then loot and plunder. Don't do it the other way around because it will cost you, right? So the end result is that he wins the battle. He puts down the rebellion. He captures all kinds of things.
He tells us the sheep, the goat, the cattle, the chariots that he takes back, and that's it. He puts down the rebellion. So it is not only a victory for him, but it's, like we said, the earliest recorded battle. And the Egyptians then really never relinquished control until about 1140 BC, which is 300 years later when the Late Bronze Age collapse takes place.
So the battle at Megiddo is by Thutmose III is one of the famous battles from antiquity, right? It's up there along with all the other battles that one learns, like Thermopylae and Salamis and all of that, but it's because this is the earliest one. It's not the only one. Like I said, there's like 34 battles that are fought there, but it is the first one that's recorded.
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Chapter 6: What were the key battles fought at Megiddo throughout history?
They're all there. They're all there. Megiddo functions, yeah, it's under Egyptian control at first, but then, yes, one by one, they each rule in turn. The problem is trying to find them. So, for instance, we know after the Late Bronze Age collapse, we know that there's immediately a city built on the ruins, Iron Age Megiddo, and that's probably the time of David and Solomon's
In the United Monarchy, I'm always careful not to call it the United Kingdom because that's another entity, you know, like where you are right now. So the United Monarchy, but then when Solomon dies, that splits into the divided kingdoms with the northern kingdom of Israel up north and southern kingdom of Judah down south. Megiddo is part of the northern kingdom of Israel.
And there are Iron Age remains there, probably something of David, probably something of Solomon. Very hard to identify, though. The Chicago excavators, as we'll talk about, thought they had found Solomon's stables. They're now no longer thought to be Solomon's. They're probably Ahab or Omri from like 100 years later.
But people have been looking for Solomon at Megiddo since the earliest excavations, you know, 1903, 1905, and certainly when Chicago got there in 1925.
Eric, why is that? Is there a particular mention of Megiddo and Solomon in the Old Testament?
There is, in fact, yes. At one point in the Book of 1 Kings, it says the cities that Solomon fortified, and it mentions Jerusalem and Megiddo and Hazor and Gezer. Alongside, it also says, and there were chariot cities of Solomon. And so from the days of Yigal Yedin in the 1950s and 60s, he dug at Hazor and at Megiddo, and then he was in correspondence with the people digging at Gezer.
And they were trying to find Solomon at all of those places because the Bible said he had fortified them. Right. So, in fact, Yadin did find the entry gates to the cities, and it looked to him as if they were all built on the same either six-chamber or eight-chamber, sometimes four-chambered entry gate to the city.
And he actually published articles about having found Solomon at Megiddo and Hazor and Gezer. Nowadays, they've been redated. Israel Finkelstein has redated the ceramics and said, no, even those are about a century later. They're probably Ahab or Omri rather than Solomon. But the discussion continues. There are people who don't agree with that.
But again, the search for Solomon has been around for a very long time at Megiddo, which is actually why I think The book that I wrote on the Chicago excavations, I think the subtitle is something like The Search for Solomon's City, something like that. Because when Chicago went, they were looking for Thutmose III and Solomon.
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Chapter 7: How did the excavations at Megiddo evolve over the years?
There's a fragment from the Epic of Gilgamesh that's been found. We still haven't found the archives that I know are there, right? In the late Bronze Age, Biridia, the king of Megiddo, writes to the Egyptian pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, and we've got six letters from him.
There must be return correspondence, and it's in the late Bronze Age palace, the half that Chicago did not excavate and throw away. So, but... We don't know that Megiddo was actually Megiddo. And in the late 1800s, other people were identifying other sites in the Jezreel Valley as potentially Megiddo. But again...
just like Hisolik has to be Troy, so Armand, which the actual official name in Arabic is Tel el-Mutaselim. Tel el-Mutaselim is Megiddo. It has to be. There's nothing else that fits the description over time. So in 1903, when Gottlieb Schumacher went there, he was originally from Zanesville, Ohio, German extraction.
His father was a Templar, not the Knights Templar, but the German movement that thought that the Second Coming was imminent and that you should move to the Holy Land. His father, Jacob, was hired to be, I believe his title was actually city planner for Haifa. And he's the one, among others, who planned the modern city of Haifa.
So young Gottlieb moved to the region when he was about nine years old. And in fact, some of the surveyors, Condor and Kitchener, who did the famous survey of Western Palestine, and actually the boundary between Israel and Lebanon today is where Condor and Kitchener stopped their survey. We know for a fact that they stayed overnight or for a couple of days with Schumacher's family in Haifa.
And they actually went up on top of Megiddo as part of their survey. And then later, Schumacher goes, he gets his PhD in archaeology and opens up the excavations at Megiddo, 1903. At that time, it's Ottoman-controlled. So he had to get permission from the sultan. to dig there. And he's there 1903 to 1905 with this huge trench, like I said, that goes right through.
He makes some discoveries, but misses others. So one of the things he finds is a little tiny Jasper seal about, uh, one and a half inches across, a couple of centimeters. And on it, it says, servant of Shema, I think is what it says, or Shema, servant of Jeroboam. And that was probably Jeroboam II. Well, that seal is now missing because Schumacher sent it up to Istanbul to the sultan.
We know it made it to Istanbul, and then it disappears. So he did find that, but it's gone. He also found a large boulder, piece of stone, which has a cartouche of Sheshonk, biblical Shishak that came from an inscription or some sort of building that Sheshonk put up at Megiddo. This would be about 925 BC after Solomon dies.
And indeed, in his inscription down in Egypt, it's very much like Thutmose III, but 400, 500 years later. Shashank says he captured Megiddo, and lo and behold, here is this fragment with his cartouche at Megiddo, but Schumacher and his men missed it, and they threw it out on their backdirt pile. They never knew they had found it. So we're not sure what level it comes from.
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Chapter 8: What future discoveries can we expect from ongoing excavations at Megiddo?
And in fact, he went to Lord Allenby and asked Allenby where he should dig. Why did Breasted and Allenby have a relationship? because when Allenby fought his battle at Megiddo in 1918, he had gotten explicit instructions from London as to how to conduct the campaign. But Allenby looked at the geography and realized that he was camped, and there were three ways to get to Megiddo.
There was the Central Way, which was narrow but most susceptible to ambush. There was the Northern Route. There was the Southern Route. And so Allenby read his history, realized what Thutmose III had done, And did it himself with the same results. The Turks and Germans were not expecting him to come up that way. He captured Megiddo in 1918 with nobody killed at all. A couple of horses died.
They ran them into the ground, but very successful battle. And later, after he had been, I guess, given a title, and he became Lord Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe, they actually asked him, do you want to be Allenby of Armageddon? And he kind of laughed and said, no, all the cranks and chrism done will come out of the walls for that one. So Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe. And he met up.
with Breasted in Cairo in 1919. And Breasted asked Allenby, how did you know to repeat what Thutmose III had done? And Allenby looked at Breasted and said, well, I had read your book. Because in 1906, Breasted had translated into English that record that Thutmose III had left on the wall in Egypt.
And so Allenby had been able to read it and therefore redo the same tactics, which leads me to, you know, George Santayana says, you know, those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. I would say those who do study history can repeat it. if you want to. So when Breasted was looking around for a site to excavate, he met up with Allenby, and Allenby said, well, why don't you dig Megiddo?
You've got the Battle of Thutmose III. Why don't you find evidence for the battle? And you've also got Solomon. And Breasted said, great. He was a showman also, all about PR. There's an exhibit at the University of Chicago right now on the Chicago excavations. And it shows how Breasted used the media back then. So that's where it came from.
That's why they started digging at Megiddo was because of Allenby having won the battle there in 1918. And that was because Breasted had published Thutmose III. So you see, it's all one big happy family, one big circle.
It's really interesting. And what you're also mentioning there, going back to Schumacher, so finding Jeroboam, mention of Jeroboam. So he's a king of the Northern Kingdom, just to clarify. But the Shoshenk, that Egyptian pharaoh, I think he's of the 22nd dynasty, or something like that, isn't he? With the silver coffin, which survives, beautiful silver coffins.
You've got Poussines a little bit, yeah, 21st and 22nd dynasty. But yeah, but Shoshank is a Libyan who founds the 22nd dynasty, right? But we're all there in the third intermediate period and all that. Yeah.
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