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Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe
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A
Hey sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try.
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C
Wish me luck.
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A
Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.
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C
Unbelievable.
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A
Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair.
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C
It's done.
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A
The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway.
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C
Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya.
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D
So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up. Fees may apply. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam, call protection, Dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24. 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety. Protect yourself now at aura.com safety.
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A
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 Pompeii's, 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 favorite 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 judgment, and Bruce Willis in an astronaut suit. But Armageddon isn't just a concept or a prophesied 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 center for trade, politics, and military affairs in the ancient Levant, owing to its position on a crossroads that linked Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia. If that wasn't enough in more recent times, Megiddo has achieved iconic status as an archaeological site playing a key role in the birth of the modern discipline, and is still being excavated today. Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the real Armageddon with Professor Eric Klein from the George Washington University. Eric is the author of Digging up Armageddon, the Search for the Lost City. Eric, welcome back to the show.
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C
My pleasure. Thank you for having me on as always.
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A
Now, it is now a tradition.
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C
What tie are you wearing in honor of today's topic? Today is an Egyptian themed tie, because we will, I presume at one point be talking about the Egyptian battle fought at Megiddo. So I thought an Egyptian Thai might be appropriate for today.
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A
Absolutely. And so, first things first, Eric. Armageddon. It's not just a thing, it's a place.
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C
It is an actual place. Most people do not realize it, but yes, it is Megiddo, the site of Megiddo. In fact, that's where the name comes from. Armageddon is Har Megiddo in Hebrew, that's the mound or mountain of Megiddo. And Armageddon originally had an H. It was Armageddon originally. But you know, in Greek, the way you do an H, it's a rough breathing and it looks like an apostrophe. So at some point when, you know, the various manuscripts were being copied, some monk left the apostrophe off and Armageddon became Armageddon. And that's what we have today. It's only mentioned one place in the Bible. It's in the book of Revelation 16:16. But so when people say to me, you know, where are you excavating from 1994 to 2014? I'm like, I was digging an Armageddon. They're like, 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.
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A
Love it. And so basically this is a site now from archeology 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.
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C
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 1992, they really got started in 94. 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, covering 5,000 years of history because we just done the
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A
Trojan War as well. And that's many different layers of cities, settlements there.
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C
That's only nine. I mean, nine. Only nine. This is at least 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 and. Right. Which is being excavated even today. So in essence, on the site and just off of it, it's from Neolithic right through Roman.
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A
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.
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C
Yeah, 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 excavations started at the mound in 1903, it was 110ft tall. It's now about 70ft tall because as we'll talk about, Chicago took off the top couple of 20ft or so. But still, in order to get to the top of the mound to excavate, you have to walk up a 70 foot tall mound first thing, five in the morning. You know, let's get that heart racing and get those steps in.
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A
Gosh, Eric. The majority of this chat, we will focus on the archaeology and what's actually been discovered at Megiddo. But we have to start off with Biblical Armageddon. And so we have to go to everyone's favorite, yet strangest book in the whole of the Bible, the Book of Revelation.
- [10:19]
C
Mm, yes, yes. Where basically John. And it's. It's not quite clear which John. It's not the Apostle John, it's another John and he goes into a cave and basically has a dream. And this is what is told to us in the book of Revelation, by the way. It is singular. There's no S. I noticed you were good with that. Many people say the Book of Revelations. No, it's Revelation. Yes. And in there it says that the penultimate battle between good and evil, not the final battle, that's going to be fought in Jerusalem like a thousand years later, but the penultimate battle between good and evil is going to be fought at a place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. That's the way it reads. And that is Megiddo. And we've got all kinds of imagery that we can go into, but you know, basically it is good versus evil, and hopefully good is going to win. But, you know, they were never quite sure when it was going to happen. And there are still people today that have said it already happened. And the vast majority, though, are waiting for it to happen. 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. 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, you know, 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. 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, like, one of the earliest night battles is fought there. So by the time of John in, you know, in the early centuries A.D. 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, like, 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, you know, 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, you know, I can't prove that. So anyway, this is why I think Armageddon made its way into the, 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, it makes a lot of sense to me to explain it that way.
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A
Love the fact there's a Battle of Thermopylae in World War II, I believe, and a Battle of Megidda in World War I. That's so interesting. Battle of Armageddon. You mentioned the valley there. So 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, in bronze, iron, and even in Stone Age times?
- [15:18]
C
Yes, absolutely. So Megiddo today is in what would be considered northern Israel, but it's not very far into the north. The Jezreel Valley, the valley of Esdrailon cuts across all of modern day Israel. It shaped like a triangle on its side. So the tip is over in modern day Haifa, and the base of the triangle is over at the Jordan River. So that's about, what, 30 or 40 miles east west across modern Israel. But north, south, it is only three miles wide at its narrowest and seven miles wide at its widest. So if you're cutting across, it's actually like Napoleon supposedly said, it's a perfect battleground there. But more importantly, for our purposes, there was a highway that led from, well, from Egypt up to Turkey if you want to go in one direction, or from Turkey down to Egypt the other. In other words, if you're an Egyptian and you want to go visit a Hittite, you take the Via Maris, the Way of the Sea, and that goes right here. If you're a Canaanite and you want to go to Mesopotamia, Assyria and Babylonia, you want to go east, west, you have to go right through the Jezreel Valley. So basically all the highways met right there. Megiddo is at the junction. So at one point, Moses III, the Egyptian Pharaoh that fights a battle there in 1479 BC, he said in his inscription, the capturing of Megiddo is like the capturing of a thousand cities. And he wasn't exaggerating. 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're. They're, you know, 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, you know, and the geography, that hasn't changed.
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A
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?
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C
Yes, it is. Next question.
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A
Okay, fine.
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C
No, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Yes, it is. But it depends on how you say 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 Tutmosis iii, when he came to the throne in his first year. We think it's about 1479 B.C. 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 day book, 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.
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A
Please, please do. And also so the enemy. Because my mind immediately goes also to the bastard 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 were thinking?
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C
It is. And yet, yes, it's Egyptians versus, we're told, about 30 local Canaanite princes. But among them, and led by them. Is the prince or king of Kadesh. The same place that 200 years later. The Egyptians and the Hittites are going to fight. Right. In Kadesh is in what is today Syria. The ruler of Kadesh is supposed to be one of the leaders of this rebellion by local Canaanites. All right. Okay. So what happens is that Thutmose III has come to the throne. He's really young, like 8 years old or so. And so his stepmother, also his aunt Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut, one of the famous female pharaohs. She rules on his behalf for 20 years. So then she disappears. When he's about 28. Thutmose III comes to the throne finally. And there must have been a suppressed libido or whatever. But there's also a rebellion. So he takes off and fights this major battle in his first year. He also then fights almost every year for, like, the next 17 years. So there's something going on there with him. He probably needed to see a therapist. But we won't go into that. At any rate, that first battle, he. I mean. And that's the best time to rebel is the first year when there's a new king on the throne. 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.
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A
Watch out, Dan.
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C
Yep. Right. So they march up, he says, in, like, 10 days. They march up to Yechiem 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. Right. It's known as the Wadi Ara, the Nahal iron. 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 Yokniam. 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 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, you know, 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. 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 relinquish control until about 1140 BC, which is, you know, 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.
- [25:31]
A
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- [27:37]
B
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- [28:14]
A
Hey sweetie, your mother showed me this
- [28:16]
C
Carvana thing for selling the car.
- [28:17]
A
I'm going to give it a try. Wish Me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer.
- [28:23]
C
Unbelievable.
- [28:25]
A
Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair.
- [28:31]
C
It's done.
- [28:31]
A
The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway.
- [28:34]
C
Carvana. Give it a whirl. Love ya.
- [28:37]
D
So good you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up. Fees may apply. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a vpn, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance. All backed by 24, 7 US based fraud support. Other companies might sell just credit monitoring or even just a vpn. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price. Competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at aura.com safety. Protect yourself now at aura.com safety.
- [30:11]
A
And does Megiddo continue to be occupied from then on until Greek and Roman times, or should we be thinking? I've got in my notes, obviously that you have the United Kingdom of Israel, then the divided kingdom as well.
- [30:23]
C
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 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 that 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.
- [31:53]
A
And Eric, why is that? So is there a particular mention of Megiddo and Solomon in the Old Testament?
- [32:00]
C
There is, in fact, yes, there is. At one point in the book of First 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 Yaga Yadin 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. So. 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 Tutmosis III and Solomon, because it is that.
- [33:51]
A
It is that classic of the archeology in the early 20th century. Isn't it, Eric, that it's almost that people went out there, trowel in one hand and Bible in the other, and just wanting to find something, even if the information is not there. And just to label it. We talk about Schliemann as well in the Trojan War, Chad and him labeling it as Priam's treasure or the Mask of Agamemnon. Just that because you're so invested in it, that desire to label something you find is linked to what, you know, in the Bible.
- [34:20]
C
Absolutely. And the Chicago excavators who were at Megiddo from 1925 to 1939 were really, in some ways no different from Schliemann. In fact, I mean, Schliemann is a Troy, 1870, and then on and off he dies in 1890. The first excavations at Megiddo are 1903 by a German American named Schumacher. And then Chicago comes in 1925. And Schumacher, when he was at Megiddo 1903-1905, guess how he digs at Megiddo, puts down a whacking great trench right through the middle of the mound, just like Sleeman had done at Troy. And they were only digging 30, 35 years apart. So, you know, it kind of makes sense. The Chicago excavators were much more careful and much better. But they too, I mean, right away as they were digging, when they found these buildings they identified as stables, they didn't just say, hey, we found stables. No, they announced to the world they had found Solomon stables. And that made headlines around the world, just like the headlines around that Schliemann had made at Troy.
- [35:34]
A
So, Eric, is it the beginning then of the 20th century that excavations, I don't even want to say proper excavations, but official excavations begin at the site of Megiddo. They know where Megiddo is already then that's when excavations begin. Well, let's start with the first one. Let's start with 1903 then.
- [35:54]
C
Okay. And I will put in at the beginning here, just like we have at Troy. There is nothing at Megiddo that says it's Megiddo. Right. We have a little bit of writing, not much. There's a fragment from the epic Gilgil Gamish that's been found. We still haven't found the archives that I know, I know are there. 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, 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 is actually Megiddo. And in the late 1800s, other people were identifying other sites in the Jezreel Valley as potentially Megiddo. But again, just like Hissarlik has to be Troy. So Ar Mound, which the actual official name in Arabic is Tell El Muta Salim Telamuta Salem 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 9 years old. And in fact, some of the surveyors, Conder and Kitchener, who did the famous survey of western Palestine, and actually the boundary between Israel and Lebanon today is where Conder 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 archeology 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 1 1/2 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 Sheshonq, Biblical Shishak, that came from an inscription or some sort of building that Sheshonq put up at Megiddo, this would be about 925 B.C. after Solomon dies. And indeed, in his inscription down in Egypt, it's very much like Thutmose III. But, you know, 400, 500 years later, Sheshonq 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 back dirt pile. They never knew they had found it. So we're not sure what level it comes from the only reason we know even that it exists. When Chicago showed up in 1925, the first thing that they did was run around the site collecting rocks and stones from Schumacher's back dirt pile to build their dig house. And one of the Egyptian workmen carrying this stone down the hill said, hey, you know, there are cartouches on here. And they're like, oh, my word. And so when James Henry Breasted came over from what was then the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, he said, wait, that's Sheshon. That's Biblical Shishak, right? So Schumacher found great stuff, but he also missed great stuff. And if we knew which level he had found that inscription in, we would know which level Sheshonq had captured. And therefore, since we know Sheshonq was just after Solomon, we would know what level at Megiddo is Solomon's. But we don't know any of that, so we're still searching for Solomon. So anyway, Schumacher did a pretty good job. Better than Schliemann at Troy, let's put it that way. But then when he ended in 1905, the site just lay there for 20 years until Chicago came and started excavating. In 1925, Breasted had just started the Oriental Institute at Chicago. Now it's the Institute for the Study of Either Ancient Cultures or Ancient Civilizations. It's Isaac Breasted started it in 1920. And he immediately started looking around for an excavation. 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 Chrysomdun 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 Tutmosis 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 or 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 Tutmosis 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 Bristead 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.
- [44:59]
A
It's really interesting. And what you also mentioned there, Gometa Schumacher. So finding like Jeroboam. Mention of Jeroboam. So he's a king of the Northern Kingdom. Just to clarify, but the Shoshenq, that Egyptian pharaoh of things of the 22nd dynasty.
- [45:13]
C
Yes.
- [45:13]
A
Or something like that, isn't he? With the silver coffin which survives. Beautiful silver coffin.
- [45:17]
C
You've got Poussenes a little bit. Yeah, 21st and 22nd dynasty. But. Yeah, but Shoshan is a Libyan who founds the 22nd dynasty. Right. But we're all there in the, you know, the third Intermediate period and all that. Yeah.
- [45:34]
A
So there. And so you got those things. And obviously Breasted that. That Egyptian link only comes to light when they are making their dig house. The link to Allenby, the British general as well.
- [45:45]
C
Right.
- [45:45]
A
So, yeah, it's taken away. So that excavation begins looking for. Yes, the Solomon link is there, but what do we know about these excavations? How long do they go on.
- [45:57]
C
So the Chicago excavations go on for 14 or 15 seasons, if you want to call it that. They. They dug almost all year round, but they first get there in 1925. It's a small group of about five people, and they. They grow and shrink and grow and shrink over the years. I mean, it. At one point, there's probably 14 or 15 staff members there because they were able to bring their spouses. And so they had, you know, one big happy family in the dig house. Wasn't always so happy. There were soap operas galore. I mean, oh, my word. So, but they're there until 1939, and they end because of World War II, mostly because a couple of the key members went off and got other jobs, but most of them went into the war effort and went to work for them. And so the 1939, they dissipate. There is actually a letter that gives permission that they could. Chicago could have started up the excavations again. And it said as long as they start within two years after the war has ended. But they never did get their act together because, again, the group had dispersed. And so they held onto it with a caretaker until 1955. And then Chicago sold the site of Megiddo and the dig house and all of its possessions to the state of Israel for $1.
- [47:31]
A
Wow.
- [47:32]
C
And, yeah, in 1955. So they got there in 1925, and they give up possession in 1955. So all told, it's 30 years that they're there, but they're actively digging only for about 15 years. And in those 15 years, they have three different directors because Breasted micromanaging from far off Chicago, though, coming to the dig every couple of years, fired them one after the other. Right. So it was trials and tribulations. Clarence Fisher was the first director. He gets fired after two years. And then PLO guy, British, he runs the dig from about 1927 to 1934. Then he gets fired by Breasted. And then Gordon Loud comes in and he runs the dig from 1935 to 1939. And each of those directors found something substantial that they could, you know, hang their hat on. So Fisher is when they figured out that they had that Sheshon cartouche. Then Guy is the one that claimed they had found Solomon Stables, which they are stables, I think, but they're probably Ahab or Omri. They're probably, you know, 9th century rather than 10th century. And then Gordon Loud is the one that found the famous ivories and the gold hoard that Megiddo is also known for so each of them has something that they can claim. And overall, the excavations were among the most scientific of the time. They were cutting edge. They were one of the first to use balloon photography. They were the first to use Munsell color charts to describe the color of the soil, which Breasted had learned about when he went to a dinner party and somebody from the art department said, hey, we've got these new things called Munsell color. And Breasted's like, we could use that on the digit. And then they eventually used a code book because they were sending telegrams back and forth. And Breasted didn't want the telegram operators to know what they had found, so he issued them Bentley's code book. And so when they found the ivories and the gold, the telegrams were sent in code. And they're in the archives at Chicago. I've seen them. I've got pictures of them. Is really cool. So it was. They were at the forefront of scientific expeditions. And Megiddo is still, like, among the backbone of what I would call biblical archaeology. Everything else in the country, not everything, but a lot of it from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, they would refer to the levels at Megiddo, the pottery at Megiddo, and say, you know, here we are in relation to it. So Chicago's excavations for those 15 years were extremely important, but it was a revolving door of staff, and some of the most important work was done by the most junior people that you wouldn't expect. I'll give you just one example. The very first volume, what's called Megiddo 1, which is the 1925 excavations up to about 1935, is authored by two guys, Lamond and Shipton. Lamond was a Chicago undergrad when he started out, eventually got his degree by correspondence. Shipton was a high school dropout, and he was from Wales, and he went on to become one of the most important people because he and Lamon learned at the site and they became experts on the pottery, on the architecture, on everything. And their books are to some degree more important than anything published by the first two directors. Absolutely amazing. So the stories behind it. I went to write up the archeology of Megiddo, and I went into the archives at Chicago and found all of their personal letters and archives, you know, journals, diaries, sometimes saying, make sure this doesn't see the light of day. You know, this is personal. I'm like, yeah, too late. And David Jashichkin, one of the co directors at Megiddo, when I was there, he was I then learned writing a book on the archeology, the stratigraphy of Megiddo, which has come out since. It's really good. And so I thought we don't need two books that do the same thing. Let me tell the story behind the story. Let me tell you about the archaeologists who excavated. And that I thought is really interesting. It's not for everyone, but if you're interested in learning how archaeology worked, especially in colonial British mandate Palestine and what life was like for them them, this is the book for you. Because I've got all, pardon the pun, I have all the dirt on what happened at that excavation. So lots of, lots of fun.
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A
But the thing I wanted to ask there is that, you know, late Bronze Age before the collapse. If we think about the Mycenaeans and the kind of the palatial centers, it seems also with Megiddo as well, like there seems to have been someone at the top in the late Bronze Age, living in a palace, probably with archives and being discovered, as you've mentioned. But. But should we be imagining before these two destructions that you hinted at, this is a thriving, dare I say some sort of city state, thousands of people with some sort of ruler, monarch at the top.
- [54:57]
C
Yes. I'm not sure I would say thousands. Maybe thousands. Certainly hundreds. Okay, yes. But one thing that we've got in Canaan during the Bronze Age, which would probably be similar to The Mycenaeans. There is no one great king of Canaan. There are a series of city states, each with their own ruler, who the actual name for him. In Akkadian, it's either mayor or ruler or governor or king, whatever. But they're vassals. They're vassals to the Egyptians. They each have control of their city and the area around it. So a city state. And we know in part from the Amarna letters that some of them are places that are still today. Right. I'm where I'm actually doing upper level seminar on the Amarna archives this semester because I have, wait for it, another new book out, Love War and Diplomacy on the Amarna archives. And we have city states at Megiddo, at Hazor, at Akko, at Jerusalem, at Gaza, at Gezer, at Damascus, Byblos, Beirut, Tyre, Sidon, right? These names still resonate today. They're still in the news today. They are in the news back then. And they are each writing letters to the Egyptian pharaoh, complaining about each other. There are just under 400 letters in the Amarna archive written to or from Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. About 50 are letters from the great kings that we've mentioned, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites and so on. But there are about 300 that are from these Canaanite vassal kings, including one guy, one of my favorites, the king of Biblos, the by the name of ribhada. He writes 60 letters, 6, 0 to the Pharaoh. They must have been coming two and three a day. And the Egyptian pharaoh, oh my God, from Rada again, who's he complaining about now? Right. So we actually can get a pretty good idea of what life was like. But that's in the 14th century. Tutmosis III would have been 100 years, 120 years earlier in the 15th century. But those same city states, they were already there. So we can, we can figure out what life was like at that time. So there is no one great king in Canaan, just like I don't think there was any one great king over in Mycenaean Greece. But we are talking the same time period, right? Everybody is communicating with everybody. In fact, there is quite a lot of Mycenaean pottery found at these Canaanite sites. They are trading either directly or indirectly with the Mycenaeans. We find Mycenaean pottery at Megiddo, at Hazor and elsewhere. So it's rather interesting, but it all comes to a screeching halt temporarily when the palace in Stratum. Seven at Megiddo is burnt to the ground. And that's where we get the gold horde, which is actually Stratum eight. And then the ivory horde, which is Stratum seven. And that's what made Gordon Loud famous. Though they almost didn't find it. They almost closed down the dig in 1936. Because they had run out of money. But then they suddenly found an extra $50,000 that was part of a grant that they had semi forgotten about. And so they said, okay, one more year. One more year. Which turned out to be two more years. And during those two years, they found the gold hoard and the ivory hoard. So they almost didn't find it, but they did.
- [59:04]
A
And these. These two hordes. So, well, clues in the name. So one's a lot of gold and one's a lot of ivory from India or south.
- [59:13]
C
No local. Probably the gold hoard, which is stratum 8. That actually might be closer to the time of Thutmose iii. And that seems to be exactly what it sounds like. Somebody buried a hoard intending to come back for it and did not. So we don't know. A king, a prince, a princess, a queen? Not sure. It's very near and partially under a wall in the palace. The ivories are, I think, almost more interesting. They were found in a separate area that Gordon Loud dubbed the Treasury. It's a room with three chambers. And the ivories are found scattered in those. Three actually broken up. So that a piece from the back chamber. Will match up with the piece from the front chamber. Obviously, something happened and they all got scattered. And what Laud and others. And Laud actually published a book called the Megiddo Ivories. He thought that in the destruction of the palace, A couple of boys and a camel got into the treasury and created havoc. Because when they excavated, they found what Loud said was the skeleton of a camel. And a couple skulls and rib bones from young boys. And he thought they wandered down and they got, you know, locked in. And then when the palace was destroyed, roundabout, you know, 1177 or 1140, they died in there. Now, I think Laud was incorrect. There is a parallel from another site. From the same time period up, not so far away, up in Syria. And that one is obviously a tomb, a royal tomb. And I think that this is not a treasury, but is a burial of, who knows, somebody from the palace who died. And those two boys, I don't think they got trapped in there during the collapse. I think they're buried in there. They. It's a multi person burial, maybe multi generational. And we've got other tombs from Megiddo now that have been found recently where you can see there's you know, eight, ten bodies in there. So I think this is a family tomb if you will. And that is not a camel, that is on top of the ivories. It is a donkey or something related, that kind of species. And we know even in the early Bronze Age that in the Levant in Canaan they are doing equid donkey burials where you put a guy or woman in the burial and then you sacrifice a donkey or some sort of equity in there. I think that was is what we've got here. And indeed I showed a picture of the so called camel to a couple of friends who do archeozoology and they're like that's not a camel. Yeah, that's, that's a donkey or something. Something related. So I think that Laud misinterpreted it and he was digging a tomb that was connected to the palace. And you've got an animal burial in there, I don't know, maybe a favorite donkey that the boys used to ride. And I don't know how the boys died or whatever, but I think that's what we've got there. So the gold horde and the ivory horde are very different in terms of how they got there. Because I think the gold hoard really is hidden by somebody when the palace was being attacked. But the ivory hoard I think is from it tomb. And then the last thing I'll say and then I'll shut up for a while is Gordon Loud announced this to the world. It was put on display in New York and Chicago, the ivory and the gold. And then he excavated beneath, took out that palace, threw it away and went to see what was underneath. There was stuff underneath from stratum 9 and 10 and 11 and 12, but nothing like what he had found. So there is now just this gaping hole in the side of the mound. I mean you're actually he took away that side of the mound so it's almost like a cliff face. But he only took away half of the palace. The other half is still there in the mound. And if you look at the bulk, the side that he left, which goes up about 50ft, you can see the walls of the palace still. They're not jutting out, but you can see them. And that's where the archive is. That's where perideas archive. But there's a good 20ft of stratified remains above, including the Neo Assyrian palaces that Chicago excavated from stratum 3 from the 8th and 7th centuries BC and they are directly on top, like right vertically on top of the Late Bronze Age palace. So we would have to pull a Chicago and pick up and throw away the Neo Assyrian palaces in order to get down to the other half of the Late Bronze Age palace. And that will almost likely never happen. We could do like what Yudin did at Hazor, where he moved an Iron Age building from where it had been to a new location and carefully reconstructed it and then dug underneath where it had been. If we could move some of the parts of the Neo Assyrian palace we could get down and I bet you there's more to be found. Not just an archive, but all kinds of other goodies in that palace.
- [65:25]
A
I mean, Eric, what a story. And really interesting to see that there's still much more to discover from Megiddo in years ahead. But that is the truth about Armageddon. As mentioned right at the start, it's not just a thing from the Bible, not just an event at the end times. It is also a place.
- [65:41]
C
Yes, absolutely. And if things get more peaceful over there, they will be excavating and anybody listening to this could volunteer to go dig an Armageddon yourselves.
- [65:52]
A
Eric, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show.
- [65:56]
C
Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me back on.
- [66:03]
A
Well, there you go. There was the one and only fan favorite of the show, Professor Eric Klein, talking you through the real story of of Armageddon. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you so much for listening. Now, if you've been enjoying the show, please make sure that you're following us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favor if you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, where we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up@history hit.com subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
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B
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