Megiddo

Location Description

32°34'40.44"N, 35°10'47.90"E

Project Location

32.57809445168696LOL35.180026888410794

Historical Context

Greek name is Armageddon. “Tel Megiddo was one of the most powerful cities in Canaan and Israel, controlling the Via Maris the main international highway connecting Egypt to Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. It is also mentioned once in the New Testament as Armageddon. Its 20 major strata contain the remains of around 30 different cities. During the Iron Age the water systems at Megiddo reached their most sophisticated phase. The water came from a spring at the foot of the mound, accessed by a concealed passageway from within the city under the city wall. In its final manifestation, the water system consisted of a cave hewn round the well, with an 80 m long aqueduct carrying water to the bottom of a vertical shaft in the city.” (UNESCO) 

Approximate Year of Completion

Excavations show the earliest structures date to around 3,300BC, but it was occupied much earlier. Megiddo was abandoned in about 350BC.

Duration of construction

The author was able to find “Duration of Construction.”

Project description

“Special attention was paid to the gates, the most vulnerable spot in any fortress. In its most sophisticated form the approach to the gate was guarded by a double set of gate towers, such as in Megiddo, Samaria and Lachish. If he penetrated the out gate, the attacker would find himself channeled into the passage between the gates, which had firing positions all along, exposing him to crossfire from two, three or four directions.

Even if the entrance was defended by a single gate tower, it was usually a very strong and deep structure with internal guard rooms and upper-floor firing apertures so as to harass the enemy inside the gate. The gate towers had at least a double set of gates on the outside and on the inside. The gateway passage could also be blocked in an additional manner between the partition walls of the chambers flanking it.” (bible-architecture)

‘“From the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, Megiddo was an important military center. The city was surrounded by mighty stone fortifications, strengthened by earthen ramparts with glacis (a sloped hard and smooth coating). The area within the walls was carefully planned and divided into several clearly defined quarters: the royal quarters containing the palaces; the administrative quarter; and the residential quarters. This plan did not significantly change until the 12th century BCE.” (jewishvirtuallibrary)

“During the reign of Solomon, Megiddo was surrounded by a sturdy casemate wall (two parallel walls with partitions between them, creating rooms). The casemates served as barracks for soldiers and for storage of equipment. A new city gate was constructed on the remains of the Canaanite gate in the northern part of wall. It included three sets of chambers with a passage between them; for additional security, towers and an outer gate were added outside this gate.” (jewishvirtuallibrary)

Construction details/observations

Length of gate is 20.10 m, width of gate is 17.80 m, space between towers is 6.40 m, the width of entrance passage is 4.20 m, width of walls is 1.60 m. In order to identify the original unit of measurement used in designing this gate, the team divided the width of the entrance passage by consecutive whole numbers. “The value of [calculated] 0.525 m. is very close to .5235 m, the length of the ‘royal’ Egyptian cubit rod dated to the late XVIII Dynasty.”

Other significant comments

“1Kgs 9:15 And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the LORD and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer.” The author has concluded that Gezer and Megiddo are in very close proximity because some publications refer to the “Solomonic Gateway at Megiddo” and others refer to the “Solomonic Gateway at Gezer.” (The East Gate of Ezekiel's Temple Enclosure and the Solomonic Gateway of Megiddo, pg. 18; Red Slip, Burnish, and the Solomonic Gateway at Gezer, pg. 1) There are questions as to whether King Solomon built what is known as the Solomonic Gateway, a six chambered gate. An example of a six chambered gate is shown below.

Figure 1: The East Gate of Ezekiel's Temple Enclosure and the Solomonic Gateway of Megiddo

Figure 2: Photograph of excavated remains of the entrance gateway to Megiddo

There is an apparent similarity in the plans of the city gates at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer, while some of their features possess identical dimensions, as pointed out by Y. Yadin. This fact, as well as the archaeological evidence and the reference in 1 Kgs. 9,15, led Yadin to conclude that "the three gates and walls all belong to the same period, and were in fact built by Solomon's architects from identical blue-prints, with minor changes in each case made necessary by the terrain." However, after remeasuring all three gates, Yadin’s measurements did not exactly match the actual dimensions of some of the features at the sites. The three gates had common features such as a row of three rooms on each side of the gate passage, some walls 3 cubits wide and two towers flanking the entrance of each gate, although the towers were different in size and form. It was concluded that the gates at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer are “in fact three separate design entities, based on different geometrical patterns. For their exact chronological definition we remain confined, however, to the archaeological evidence alone.” (page 2, 7: The Design of the Royal Gates at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer)

Sources and references

http://www.bible-architecture.info/Megiddo.htm

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1108

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Megiddo.html

https://books.google.com/books?id=nrsUAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Design of the Royal Gates at Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer

The East Gate of Ezekiel's Temple Enclosure and the Solomonic Gateway of Megiddo

Project Id

DJP-09-15