Palatial Discoveries and Future Potential

Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tutterburg 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 two. Just visit historyhit dot com slash suubbscribe. So how did Rome begin With a throne, a triumph, or a murder between brothers Well, according to legend, the mighty city was founded by the twin sons of Mars, Romulus and Remus abbandoned as infants, suckled by a she wolf and destined for greatness until ambition poisoned their body I'm Tristin Hughes and I cannot wait to get into the explosive story of Romulus and Remus on the ancient live tour in Australia and New Zealand this August I'm going to be joined by the fantastic Jeremy Armstrong. He's a professor of Ancient history and an expert on early Rome. Ketather We'll follow the myth from Divine origins to blood soaked Fing legend teeasing apart what the Romans believe archaeology can actually tell us and How a city built on stories became one of the greatest powers in history. Tickets are on sale now. We're coming to Canberra on the second of August And we're going to be in Auckland on the eighth The tickets they are selling far, so book yours now at fame. com. au. Can't wait to see you there think that gemstones are static and immutable The reality is rather different In this season, you will traverse the layers of the Earth with the diamond Wander oriental trade routes in search of Lapos Lazoli Explore the seas and the hunt for precious coral and discover a strange perido fallen from the sky Listen now to Voice of Jules. cast by Lake Cole, School of Jewelry Arts with the support of Fenclf in our ps. Heyo? 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 Armagedon 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 pompeis, your Maya collapses, your Sodoman Gamoras Y or what else is that Bronze Age collapses, prehistoric plagues, etca. Look I get it I am equally fascinated by those topics The team and I realized a few weeks back now We realize 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, ch 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 And 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 prophesized event. It's a place an ancient city called Megido, situated in modern day Israel Megido 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 Meagido'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 two thousand 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 to Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia If that wasn't enough, in more recent times, Meido 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 seearch for the lost City Eric Welcome back to the show. My pleasure. thank you for having me on As always now, it is now a tradition. What tie are you wearing In honor of today's topic, today is an Egyptian theme tie. because we will, I presume, at one point be talking about the Egyptian battle fought at Meagido. So I thought In Egyptian time might be appropriate for today. Absolutely. And so first things first, Eric Armageddon, it's not just a thing, it's a place. It is an actual place. Most people do not realize it, but yes, it is Megido, the site of Megido. In fact, that's where The name comes from. Armageddon is har Meido In Hebrew, that's the mound or mountain of Meido And Armageddon originally had an H. It was Armageddon originally, but you know, in Greek, the way you do in 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 sixteen, sixteen. But so when people say to me, you know, where were you excavating from nineteen ninety four to twenty fourteen? I'm like, I was digging an armagedon. they're like That's not a real place. I'm like Actually it is. comeome on, I'll show you it. So Meagido is Armageddon and our T shirts from each season on the back, they said, I survived Armageddon love it. And so basically this is a site now from archaeology that we're learning we're continuing to learn more about. So you know 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. Yes, even today, still. I mean The renewed excavations, as they're called, which are a consortium headed by Tel Aviv University, they started nineteen ninety two, they really got started in ninety four and that's when I joined And then after twenty years, I left the project in twenty fourteen, but it's still going today So they are still excavating every other summer, usually odd numbered summers. There is still lotots of information coming out of the ground and indeed more so now than ever before because they're using rememote 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 Meito are getting more and more and more interesting In parks there's so much there. I mean, there are twenty cities one on top of another. covering five thousand years of history Because we had just done the Trojan War as well and that's many different layers of Sity settlements there. That's only nine. I nine. onlyn nine. This is at least twenty Yeah went Yeah it starts back in the Nolithic 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 legionaires' camps right at the base of Megido. which is being excavated even today. So in essence, on the site and just off of it. It's from Neolithic right through Roman. It it's like Jericho, one of those sites that's just continually used again and again and again in that area of the world. Exactly. I mean, I always tell my students that To have a successful site in Atiquity, you need food You need water and you need defense And Meagido 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 nineteen oh three, It was one hundred and ten feet tall It's now about seventy feet tall because As we'll talk about, Chicago took off. the top couple of twenty feet or so But still In order to get to the top of the mound to excavate, you have to walk up a seventy foot tall mound. First thing, five in the morning You know, let's get that heart racing and get those steps in Eric The majority of this chat we will focus on the archaeology and what's actually been discovered at the Gido. 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 Yes, yes, were. Basically John And 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 penulttimate battle between good and evil, not the fininal battle That's going to be fought in Jerusalem like a thousand years later pen uulttimate battle between good and evil was going to be fought at a place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. That's the way it reads and that is Meagido. 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 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 Tue happen So one of the reasons I think they picked this site for Armageddon penulttimate battle And I wrote about this. I had a book that came out in two thousand C the Battles of Armagedd And I don't know if you'll remember, you're probably too young, but in the run up, to two thousands, we had the whole Y two K scare. Everybody thought the world was going to end because of the computers and all that I had already been digging at Meido since ninety four every other year. So ninety four and ninety six, ninety eight. And I thought Let me write a book about all the battles that have been fought at Meagido and and publish it before Y two K and I'll make a fortune and I can retire. But As it turned out, I found out that there were thirty four battles that had been fought there And so it took me too long to write the book and I missed The Y two K it came out after that. so as a result, I couldn't retire. I'm still working. but you know, so it goes. 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 Barack It is by the river, right by Meagido Saul and Jonathan killed on Mount Gilboa, which was just down the valley from Magido We've also got like one of the earliest night battles is fought there. So By the time of John you know in the early centuries AD, They would have already known this to be a place with a huge history 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 Meida 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 Mamaluks and the Mongols fight there. Napoleon fights at Mount Tabor just down the road, and of course, Lord Allenby fights World War won their and actually mimics the tactics of Tutmosis III from more than three thousand years earlier. So at one point I thought that I agreed with Napoleon. who supposedly said that the Jezrael Valley and Meagido is the most perfect battlefield on the face of the earth. But you know, I look 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 New Testament because they already knew that so many battles had been fought there, and they thought that one of the final ones would also take place there. So it makes a lot of sense to me to explain it that way Love the fact there's a Bast of Thopolai in World War two, I believe, and a Bast of Magida in World War O one. So interesting battle of Armagd You mentioned the valley there. so can you give us good sense of the location and just why it was uch an important, such a strategic site for so many thousands of years back in in bronze, iron and even in stone age times. Yes, absolutely. So Meido today is in what would be considered northern Israel, but it's not very far into the north The Jezreel Valley, the valley of Astraalon It cuts across all of modern day Israel. It's shaped like a triangle on its side So tip is over in modern day hyifpha and the base of the triangle is over at the Jordan River So that's about what thirty or forty miles east west across modern Israel North South It is only three miles wide at it narrowest and seven miles wide at its widest. So If you're cutting across, it's actually likeike 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 hitsite You take the Vamaris, the wayay of the sea And that goes right here. If you're at Canaanite and you want to go to Mesopotamia Assyria and Babylonia, you want to go east west, you have to go right through the Jz realal Valley. So basically All the highways met. right there Magido is at the junction So at one point, Tptmosis III, the Egyptian phharaoh that fights a battle there in fourteen seventy nine BC, he said in his inscription The capturing of Meagido 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 Meagido unless the area simply gave in. to them without a fight So we've got battles all the way probablyroably 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 the last battle Per se that I documented was nineteen sixty seven Or maybe even nineteen seventy three, there were some air skirmishes because One of the airfields is right there in the valley So they' they're, you know, they've been fighting there. for four thousand years The geography is what dictates it and that hasn't changed Just the people and the weapons have changed The fighting, you know, and the geography, that hasn't changed It's amazing to think that even in iron age times more than two thousand years ago around that time It was already well known as a battle site hence the Biblical links. So thank you for explaining that, Eric But let's focus in on that battle of Futmos III, the Egyptian Paraoh. Eric Is it correct to say that this is the earliest recorded battle in history Yes It is Next question. Okay, fine. No I'm kidding I'mding I'm kidding. Yes, it is, but it depends on how you say it It is the earliest recorded battle in history. Yes. It's not the earliest battle in history. That's when One neeolithic 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 thone in his first year We think it's about fourteen seventy nine BC. The Canaanite rulers rise up in rebellion. And he has to march up to Canaan to put down the rebellion He took along scribes with him. They kept a daybook, 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. ten days. We got to the site of Yachem And we stopped and held a council And 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 If you want, I can tell very quickly what he says. Please do please do. And also so the enemy because my mind immediately goes also to the Bath of Kadesh, where you do have the Hittite version of it as well. But that's Egyptians versus Hittites. With Meghido, is it Egyptians versus local Canites? Is that what you really think? It is and yet Yes,s Egyptians' verses were told about thirty local Canaanite princes But among them and led by them is the prince or king of Kadesh. A the same place that two hundred years later The Egyptians and the Hittites were going to fight, wriding Kadeshes in what is today Syria The ruler of Kadesh is supposed to be one of the leaders of this rebellion by local Canaanites Okay. So what happens is that Tmosus III has come to the throne. He's really young, like eight years old or so. And so his stepmother Also his aunt Hut Shehepsut. Hotshepsa one of the famous female phharaohs, she rules on his behalf for twenty years. Then she disappears. when he's about twenty eight. Tuptmosis 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 seventeen 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. Watch out D. Yeah So they march up, he says in like ten days, they march up to Yachem and they stop and they have a war council because It seems that there are three ways to get to Meido 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 Meido,? It's known as the Wadiara, the Nahhal 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 Yknam And the other comes around to the south and comes out by Tanak. 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 Sutmosis, the third 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 twelve hours And they came out at Magido and sure enough, It was unguarded Canaanites were at the northern and the southern entrances to the Jezrael 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 Meido. There is a battle when the Canaanites come you know 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 Meido. That allowed the people inside the city time to close the city gates. includluding hauling people up using, you know ropes made of cloth and linen and all that. And it then took them att 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 cost you 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 notot only a victory for him, but it's, like we said, the earliest recorded battle and The Egyptians then Re never relinquish control. until about eleven forty BC which is, you know, three hundred years later when the late Bronze Age collapse takes place So the battle at Magido is by Topmosis IId is one of the famous battles from antiquity Right? It's up there along with all the other battles that one learns like Thrmopyle. and Salamus and all of that It's because This is the earliest one. It's not the only one. Like I said, there's like thirty four battles that are fought there But it is the first one that's recorded. I am often considered to be one of the most famous and sought after gemstones. My aura is linked to the mysteries of my origin I am the colonan diamond om farth the streches of the universe, to the depths of the Eth Let me tell you about my remarkable journey Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Lake Cole, School of Jewelry Arts supported by Ven Clefanart Pes You're on the banks of the Thames. It's sixteen sixty six and the city is a towering inferno in front of it. The great fire rages through the Stuart cabinet. If you're visiting London this summer, let me Dan Snow, historian and born and raised Londoner be your personal guide. In a brand new series of audio walking tools from History Hit, I tell you the stories of where some of England's most explosive history happenens We'll follow the destructive path of the Great Fire of London and explore where and how King Charles I met his grizzly end All you need is your smartphone and a voiceemap app Using your location, it triggers the story automatically so you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the history as you walk Step into London's past Download Voicemap from your app store or go to voicemap. m slash history hit. That's voicemap. m forward slash history hit And as Mequido continue to be occupied from then on until into Greek and Roman times or should we be thinking I've got on my nose I was eer You have the United Kingdom of Israel then the divided kingdom as well. They're all there, They're all there. Meido functions. Yeahah, 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 A the late Bronze Age collapse, we know that there is immediately a city built on the ruins Iron Age Maeto 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. Meghido 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 Solomons, they're probably a Habaramri from like a hundred years later People have been looking for Solomon Meagido. Since the earliest excavations you know nineteen oh three nineteen oh five and certainly when Chicago got there in nineteen twenty five And Derek, why is that? So is there a particular mention of Meagido and Solomon in the Old Testament? 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. Meagido and hotsore. Gesser Alongside, it also says, and there were chariot cities. of Solomon And so from the days of Yagaladin in the nineteen fifties and sixties He dug at Hotsore and at Magido and then he was in correspondence with the people digging at Gizer And they were trying to find Solomon at all of those places becausecause the Bible said He had fortified them In fact, Yadine did find the entry gates 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 Meagido An Hatsor and Geeser 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 Amri 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 Magido, 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 City, something like that becausecause when Chicago went They were looking for Toposis III And Solomon becausecause it is that is that classic of archeology in the early twentieth century, isn't it Eric that It's almost that people went out there traowel in one hand and Bible in the other I'm just wanting to find something even if the information is not there and just to label it. We talk about Schleeman as well in our Trojan warar 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 Absolutely. and the Chicago excavators who were at Meagido from nineteen twenty five to nineteen thirty nine were really in some ways, no different from Sleeman In fact, I mean Sleeman is a Troy eighteen seventy and then on and off, he dies in eighteen ninety The first excavations at Meagido are nineteen oh three. by a German American named Schumacher And then Chicago comes in nineteen And Schumacher when he was at Meagido in nineteen oh three to nineteen oh five, guess how he digs at Meido? put down a whacking great trench right through the middle of the mound just like Sleeman had done at Troy. and they were only digging thirty, thirty five years apart. so you know it kind of makes sense. The Chicago excavators were much more careful and much better, but they too The 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 that Sleeman had made at Troy So Eric, is it the beginning then of the twentieth century that Excavations I don't even say proper excavations, but official excavations begin at the site of Meido. They know where Meido is already. then that's when excavations begin Well let's start with the first one. Let's start with nice No three then Okayad. And I will put in at the beginning here just like We have a Troy There is nothing at Meagido that says it's Magido We have a little bit of writing, not much. There's a fragment from the Epic Gilgames that's been found We still haven't found the archives that I know I know are there Right In the late Bronze Age, Birid Dia, the king of Megido, writes to the Egyptian phharaohs Aman Hutep III and Akenaten And we've got six letters from him. There 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 We don't know that Meagido is actually Meagido And in the ear late eighteen hundreds Other people were identifying other sites in the Jezrael Valley as potentially Meagido. But again, just like Hiserk has to be Troy. so Rmound, which the actual official name in Arabic is Mel L Muta Salim. Telam Muta Slem is Meagido. It has to be. There's nothing else that fits the description over time In nineteen oh three, when Gotlib Schumacher went there, he was originally from Zamesville, Ohio German extraction, his father was a templar the Kight's Templar The German movement that thought that the Scond 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 plananner. for Hyifa. And he's the one among others who planned the modern city of Hyifa So young Goty moved to the region when he was about nine years old. And in fact Some of the surveyors, Condor and Kitcher who did the famous survey of Western Palestine And actually, the boundary between Israel and Lebanon today is where Kondor and Kitchner stopp their survey We know for a fact that they stayed overnight or for a couple of days with Schumachher's family in Hifa And they actually went up on top of Magido as part of their survey And then later, Schumachher goes, he gets his PhD in archeology and opens up the excavations Magido in nineteen oh three. att that time, it's Ottoman controlled So he had to get permission from the Sultan. to dig there. and he's there in nineteen oh three to nineteen oh five with this huge trench, like I said goes right through. He makes some discoveries misses others So one of the things he finds is a little tiny Jasper seal about one and a half inches across, a couple of centimeters And on it it says serervant of Shema, I think is what it says Shama servant of Jerob Boam. And that was probably Jeroboma I second That seal is now missing. becausecause Schumachacher 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 Chesk Biblical sheak came from an inscription or some sort of building that Chchank put up at Meagido. This would be about nine hundred twenty five BC after Solomon dies And indeed in his inscription down in Egypt. It's very much like Tutmosis III, but you know, four hundred, five hundred years later Cesong says he captured Meagido And lo and behold Here is this fragment with his cartouche at Magino. but Schumachher and his men missed it and they threw it out on their backdirt file. 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 nineteen twenty five The first thing that they did was run around the site collecting rocks and stones from Schumacher's back door 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? the University of Chicago, he said, wait, that's Sesank. That's biblical Sishak So Schumacher found great stuff, but he also missed great stuff if we knew which level. He had found inscription in, we would know which level Ceson had captured And therefore since we know Sesock was just after Solomon, We would know what level at Meido is Solomons' But we don't know any of that. So we're still searching for Solomon. Anyway, Schumacher did a pretty good job Bet than Sleamman at Troy. Let's put it that way But then when he ended in nineteen oh five The site just lay there for twenty years until Chicago came and started excavating. in nineteen twenty five Breasteed 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 ISAC Breast had started it in nineteen twenty and he immediately started looking around for an excavation And in fact He went to Lord Allenby and asked Allen B where he should dig Why did brereast at and alaby have a relationship because When Allenby fought his battle at Meagido in nineteen eighteen He had gotten explicit instructions from London as to how to conduct the campaign Allan B looked at the geography. and realized that he was camped And there were three ways to get to Meagida 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 Allen B read his history. realized what Tutmosis 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 Meagido in nineteen eighteen with nobody killed Etdle 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 Meido and Felix Stow They actually asked him, do you want to be Allan B of Armageddon? And he kind of laughed and said, No, all the cranks and Chrisem done will come out of the walls for that one. So Alabia Bagido and Felix Do and he met up with Bastad in Cairo in nineteen nineteen. and Breaststad asked Allenrik. How did you know to repeat what Tutmosis III had done? and Alamy looked at Brestead and said, Well, I had read your book. Because in nineteen oh six, Brestead had translated into English That record that Tut Mosis III had left on the wall in Egypt. And so Alenb had been able to read it and therefore redo the same tactics, which leads me to, you know, George Santaiana says, you know, those who don't study history 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 Alaby said, Well, why don't you dig Mageto? You've got the Battle of Tutmosis III. Why don't you find evidence for the battle And you've also got Solomon and Basted and 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 Breiststead used the media back then That's where it came from. That's why they started digging a Meido was because of Allenby having won the battle there in nineteen eighteen, and that was because Breaststead had published tptmosis I third. So you see, it's all one big happy family, one big circle It's really interesting. and what you were mentioned there go about to Schumacer. so finding Jeroboome mention of Jerobome. so he's a k of the northern kingdom just to clarify But the Shoshenank, that Egyptian pharaoh of things of the twenty second dynasty.es something like that, isn't he? with the silver coffin which survives beautiful silver coffin. You've got Pusenes a little bit ye, twenty first and twenty second dynasty. But yeah, but Shoshenank is a Libyan F foundounds the twenty second dynasty. rightight. But we're all there in the, you know, the third intermediate period and all thatah. Yeah So there and so you got those things and obviously breasted that's Egyptian link only comes to light when they are making their dig house, the link to Alenby, the British genereneral as well. But So yeah, let's take it away. 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? So the Chicago excavations Go on for Fteen or fifteen seasons, if you want to call it that, they dug almost all year round. They first got there in nineteen twenty five. It's a small group of about five people and they they grow and shink and grow and shrink over the years. I mean at one point, there's probably fourteen or fifteen 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 wasasn't always so happy There were soap operas galore I mean, oh my word. So but they're there until nineteen thirty nine And they end because of World War II mostostly 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 nineteen thirty nine, 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 becausecause again The group had dispersed And so They held ono it with a caretaker until nineteen fifty five And then Chicago sold the site of Meagido and the Dig house and all of its possessions to the state of Israel One dollar And on in nineteen fifty five. So they got there in nineteen twenty five. And they give up possession in nineteen fifty five. So all told, it's thirty years that they're there But they're actively digging only for about fifteen years In those fifteen years, they have three different directors because Baststad Micromanaging from far off Chicago though coming to the dig every couple of years fired them one after the other Right. So we 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 nineteen twenty seven to nineteen thirty four, then he gets fired by Breaststead and then Gordon Loud comes in And he runs the dig from nineteen thirty five to nineteen thirty nine. eachach 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 chchonk. carts. And then Guy is the one that claimed they had found Solomon Stables which they are stables, I think But they're probably a haab ormri. they're probablyb, you know, ninth century rather than tenth century. And then Gordon Lad is the one that found the famous Iivories and the gold hordard Meido was 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 Muncell color charts to describe the color of the soil which Brested had learned about when he went to a dinner party and somebody from the art department said, Hey, we've got these new things Muncell Cullor And breast it's like, we could use that on the dig And then they eventually used a codebook becausecause they were sending telegrams back and forth Baststead didn't want the telegram operators to know what they had found So he issued them '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. It's really cool. So it was they were at the forefront. of scientific expeditions. and Magido 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. the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, they would refer to the levels at Meido, the pottery at Meagido and say, you know, here we are in relation to it. So Chicago's excavations for those fifteen years were extremely Important 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 Meagido onene. which is the een twenty five excavations up to about nineteen thirty five is authored by Two guys, Lamon and Shipton Laman was a Chicago undergrad when he started out eventually got his degree by correspondence Shipton Shifton was a high school dropout He was from Wales And he went on to become one of the most important people because he and Leman learned to 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. All absolutely amazing So the stories behind it, I went to write up the archaeology of Magido 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 Jasiskin, one of the co directors at Magido, when I was there, he was I I then learned writing a book on the archaeology, the stratigraphy of Meagido, 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 archeologists 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 colonial British mandate Palestine life was like for 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. I am often considered to be one of the most famous and sought after gemstones. Aura is linked to the mysteries of my origin I am the Culloran diamond the farth the stretches of the universe, to the depths of the Eth Let me tell you about my remarkable journey Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by Lake Cole, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Ven Klefan A Pel Land a Viking Longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous' cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week But the thing I want to ask there is that, you know Late Bronze age before the collapse if you think about the Mycenaeans and the kind of the palatial centers, It seems also with Meagido as well like There seems to have been someone at the top in the late Bronze Age living in a palace, probably with archives now being discovered as you've mentioned ould we be imagining before these two destructions that you hint 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 Yes, I'm not sure I would say thousands. mayaybe 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 Misenans There is no one great king of Canaan There are a series of city states, each with their own Ruler. H the actual name for him in In Acadian 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 Amaro letters that Some of them are places that are still today R? I'm where I'm actually doing upper level seminar on the Amarna Archives this semester because I havet wait for it, another new book out, Love War and Diplomacy on the Aarna Archives. and we have city states at Meagido at Hotsor at Ako Jerusalem at Gaza Geser. Damascus Biblos Beirut tre sited Right? These names still resonate today. They're still in the news Tod, they are in the news back then and they are each writing letters to the Egyptian phharaoh, complaining about each other Right? there are just under four hundred letters in The Amarna Archive written to or from Amen Hotep I third and Aakkunaten. aboutout fifty are letters from the great kings that we've mentioned, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, and so on There are about three hundred that are from these Canaanite vassal kings, including One guy, one of my favorites, the king of Biblos by the name of Rib Hada He writes sixty letters S zero to the phharaoh They must have been coming two and three a day. And the Egyptian pharaoh oh my God, from Riphada again, who's he complaining about now So we actually can get a pretty good idea of what life was like, but that's in the fourteenth century. Telemosis III would have been a hundred years hundred and twenty years earlier in the fifteenth century, but those same city states, they were already there So can we can figure out what life was like time. So there is no one great king in Canaan, just like I don't think there was any one great king over in Mycenae and Greece. But we are talking the same time period Right? Everybody is u 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 mycenans. We find Mycenan pottery at Meido. at Hotsore and elsewhere So it's Rather interesting, but It all comes to a screeching halt temporarily when palace in Stratum seeven at Meagido is burnt to the ground That's where we get the gold hordard which is actually stratum eight. And then the Iivory hord, which is stratum seven That's what made Gordon Loud famous. though they almost didn't find it They almost closed down the dig. in nineteen thirty six because they had run out of money But then they suddenly found an extra fifty thousand dollars. 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 hoord and the ivory hord. so they almost didn't find it, but they did 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 Yes. India or not South. No, local probably. the gold horde which is stratomy that that actually might be closer to the time of Toposis III. And that seems to be exactly what it sounds like somebody buried a hord 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 Ivivories are, I think, almost more interesting. They were found in a separate area that Gordon Laude 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 a piece from the front chamber Obviously something happened. and they all got scattered. And what Laoud and others and Laudd actually published a book called The Meagido Ivories D thought that in the destruction of the palace a couple of boys and a camel got into the treasury and created havoc becausecause when they excavated, they found Laud said was the skeleton of a camel and a couple Gals and ribones from young boys And he thought, they wander down and they got, you know, locked in. And then when the palace was destroyed roundabout, you know, eleven seventy seven or eleven forty they died in there. Now I think Loud was incorrect There is a parallel fromr another site from the same time period up notot so far away up in Syria And that one is obviously a tomb a royal tomb I think that this is not a treasury, but is a burial of who knows? somebody from palace who died and Th 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 multig generational.