New archaeological evidence from the ancient city of Megiddo in northern Israel — the location of the final Battle of Armageddon in the Book of Revelation — supports the biblical story of an Israelite king and Egyptian pharaoh clashing there more than 2,600 years ago, researchers report.
According to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, which feature somewhat variant collections of ancient Hebrew writings, the Kingdom of Judah's King Josiah went face-to-face with the forces of Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II at Megiddo in 609 BC, in what the Bible’s Book of Chronicles depicted as an epic confrontation that foreshadowed the final conflict between God and Satan. Now, an analysis of ancient pottery fragments excavated at Megiddo shows that the settlement was indeed occupied by the Egyptians in the seventh century BC, states Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University who led the expedition that recovered the crucial evidence.
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Egyptian Fingerprints at Megiddo
In an article published in The Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, Finkelstein and his colleagues introduce the results of their study of a large numbers of Egyptian pottery fragments discovered alongside Greek pottery fragments in a layer dating to the late seventh century. This was a time when Egyptian commanders frequently hired Greek mercenaries to fill in manpower gaps, especially when they were expecting trouble.
Excavation site where pottery fragments from seventh century BC Egypt and Greece unearthed at the Megiddo. (Megiddo Expedition).
The researchers determined the origins of the fragments by examining their stylistic flourishes and the type of clay that was used to produce them. The fragments support biblical accounts of Egyptian forces being stationed at Megiddo during Josiah's reign (although the finds do not prove direct that Josiah was at the battle, or that there even was a battle, the latter point being a bone of contention for years).
If he was there, as the Bible reports, it's unclear if he succumbed to injuries he suffered during a battle against the Egyptians at Megiddo, or if he was executed there for his opposition to the pharaoh’s agenda. Josiah's death was later said to foretell the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC to the Neo-Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II, whose men destroyed the First Temple (Solomon's Temple) and forced thousands into exile during the Babylonian captivity.
Archaeologist Assaf Kleiman of Ben-Gurion University, a study co-author, told Live Science that the confrontation between the the king of Judah and his Egyptian counterpart was described differently in two different sections of the Bible.
"The Josiah-Necho event at Megiddo in 609 BCE is described in the Bible twice: as an execution in a short chronistic verse in Kings and as a decisive battle in Chronicles," he said.
The Book of Kings was written close to the time of the reported events while the Book of Chronicles was composed centuries later, so the account in the Book of Kings might be more reliable, Kleiman asserted.
The site of the Neo-Assyrian settlement at Megiddo (732 to 609 BC), dating to time period Egypt arrived to occupy the city. (Team Venture/CC BY-SA 4.0).
Megiddo: A Crossroads City at the Crossroads of History
The ruins of Megiddo, found in an archaeological mound or tel, are located in a national park located about 18 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Haifa. Megiddo was a strategically important city at a crossroads where trade and military routes converged, and it was occupied at different times by Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians. Many battles occurred at Megiddo, and its name is the inspiration for the word "Armageddon"— the ancient settlement was seen as a fitting location for final battle described in the New Testament's Book of Revelation, and the concept of Armageddon is now widely associated with the end of the world.
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Excavations at Megiddo have been ongoing for approximately a century, and archaeologists have unearthed more than 20 archaeological layers over that time period. The layer with Egyptian and Greek pottery fragments described in the latest study is among several layers that date from 732 BC or later, when historical documents say that Megiddo was conquered by the Neo-Assyrians under their king Tiglath-Pileser III. According to the Bible, the northern kingdom of Israel was seized by Neo-Assyrians a decade later, after which the 10 tribes of Israel (the lost tribes) were expelled from the territory.
There is debate among academics whether the encounter between Josiah and Necho at Megiddo in 609 BC was actually a battle, or if Necho had merely executed his vassal Josiah there as punishment for insubordination. While the Bible does not say that the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah had been seized by Egypt at that time, the historical and archaeological records do show that Neo-Assyrian power in the region declined rapidly following the arrival of the Egyptians in 630 BC.
Historian Jacob Wright, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that Josiah might have traveled from Jerusalem to Megiddo to pay his respects to Necho, but was executed there for reasons that are not clear. Wright noted that the the Book of Kings says only that Josiah traveled to Megiddo and was "put to death" there, with no mention of a battle. The latter was referenced exclusively in the Book of Chronicles, which was composed a century after the events in question.
Painting by Nicholas Roerich, 1936, entitled ‘Armageddon’ depicting events at Megiddo during the final confrontation between God and Satan. (Public Domain).
The authors of the new study are also uncertain about the circumstances that led to Josiah's execution. Finkelstein stated that Josiah was considered an exceptionally pious and noble king, and that the shock of the news of his death likely played a role in the prophecies that claimed Megiddo would be the site of Armageddon (the final apocalypse). It likely made sense from the ancient perspective to identify the site where Josiah’s murder took place as the location where the forces of good and evil (or God and the Devil) would confront each other at the end of time.
For now, what can be said with certainty is that the Egyptians did occupy Megiddo at the time when Josiah met his maker, which is a significant discovery that at least partially backs biblical accounts of ancient events.
Top image: Aerial photo of Tel Megiddo site, plus surrounding countryside, in northern Israel.
Source: Avram Graicer/CC BY-SA 3.0.
By Nathan Falde
