BGU Professor Finds First Evidence of Ancient Battle
BGU Professor Finds First Evidence of Ancient Battle
April 3, 2025
Israel Studies, Culture & Jewish Thought, Social Sciences & Humanities
Mount Megiddo, site of an ancient city in northern Israel’s Jezreel valley
New York Post – Archaeologists, including Dr. Assaf Kleiman, a senior member of the Megiddo Expedition staff and senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), believe they have uncovered evidence of an ancient biblical battle after finding artifacts during a recent excavation of the ancient city of Megiddo in northern Israel. The site is said to contain over 30 layers of various settlements, dating back from the Copper Age to World War I.
Tel Megiddo was the location where Josiah, the king of Judah, famously fought the Battle of Megiddo in 609 B.C. The Jewish leader was defeated and killed by the army of the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II.
The story of the battle is told in the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament, but Megiddo is also referenced in the Book of Revelation. The site is referred to as “Armageddon,” closely related to the Hebrew phrase “Har Megiddo,” which translates to “mountain of Megiddo.”
Dr. Kleiman told Fox News Digital he believes the pottery fragments belonged to the Egyptian army that defeated Josiah. The findings consist of “significant quantities” of Egyptian-produced broken vessels dating back to the late 7th century B.C., close to when the Battle of Megiddo was fought.
“The exposure of so many Egyptian vessels, including fragments of serving bowls, cooking pots, and storage jars, is an exceptional phenomenon,” Kleiman explained.
“We, therefore, understand it as representing Egyptians who settled at Megiddo in the late 7th century, maybe as part of an army force that arrived at the site following the collapse of the Assyrian Empire,” he added.
“Our excavations demonstrated continuous production (and consumption) of similar locally-style vessels at Megiddo, especially cooking pots, also under imperial rule,” he explained. “This suggests that the social fabric of Megiddo in the Assyrian Era must have been composed of a significant portion of local populations, who were not expelled by the Assyrians and who lived alongside deportees brought in by the empire.”
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