* Courtesy Hanay
In part 1 of this series, I described my journey to Mount Megiddo. In this post, before getting too caught up in the things around me, I’d like to take a minute and look back into the early history of this endearing place.
There are some words and expressions that immediately conjure up stark images in our mind; the Big Bang, the Ice age, the atomic bomb, the moon landing. Beyond any doubt, these are events that have changed the course of human history.
I will add one more piece to this puzzle - Armageddon. What separates them, is this event takes place in the future.
Many scholars believe the battle of good versus evil will climax in a place called Mount Megiddo, it’s a story that is thousands of years old. Surprisingly, Mount Megiddo’s importance to history predates the early scripture writings by four thousand years.
The burning question is why was Tel Megiddo, it’s Hebrew name, so important that it was chosen as the place where civilization will be brought to it’s climax.
As fate would have it, I returned at the moment in time when Covid -19 threatens the existence of our modern world, and I am in search of answers. For many years I have studied about the future of this place, this time, I want to learn more about it’s past.
The burning question is why was Tel Megiddo, it’s Hebrew name, so important that it was chosen as the place where civilization will be brought to it’s climax.
Driven by intense curiosity, I am searching for any clues present in this magnificent valley that can help unravel the mystery of this ancient city. And I want to share my findings with you.
In order to paint a more complete picture, I will use evidence that has been unearthed from this site by modern-day archeologists and historians. We can’t know where we’re going, until we know where we came from.
Megiddo is strategically perched above the most important land route in the ancient Near East. The city dominated international traffic for over 6,000 years — from ca. 7,000 B.C.E. through to biblical times.
As civilizations came and went, succeeding settlements at ancient Megiddo were built on the ruins of their predecessors, creating a multi-layered archaeological legacy that abounds in unparalleled treasures that include monumental temples, lavish palaces, mighty fortifications, and remarkably-engineered water systems.
Megiddo was the site of epic battles that decided the fate of western Asia. It was here that the Egyptians took their first steps toward empire building when Pharaoh Thutmose III, in the 15th century B.C.E., conquered Canaan; it was from here that Assyria staged its deportation of the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel; and it was here that Josiah—the last righteous king of the lineage of David—was killed by Pharaoh Necho II, opening the way for centuries of messianic yearning.
Megiddo is the only site in Israel mentioned by every great power in the ancient Near East. In the New Testament it appears as Armageddon (a Greek corruption of the Hebrew Har [=Mount] Megiddo), location of the millennial battle between the forces of good and evil.
Megiddo is an archetypal historical site whose cast of characters includes Canaanites, Egyptians, Israelites, Assyrians, and Persians in the biblical period and Ottoman Turks and Englishmen in the modern era.
In my next post we’ll delve deeper into the recent history of Mount Megiddo.
John Q.
*Historical background Courtesy the Shmunis Family Foundation Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim
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