Inside BAR

No name of an ancient site in Israel has passed into common parlance the way Megiddo has, thanks to the prophecy in the Book of Revelation that the battle at the end of days will take place there. Armageddon is a corruption of the term Har Megiddo, Mount of Megiddo. It is not Megiddo’s possible role in the future, however, that interests archaeologists, but rather its past. Excavated three times this century, Megiddo has more than enough scholarly riches to reward a fourth major dig: Bronze Age palaces, Canaanite temples, Egyptian monuments and Israelite gates and … perhaps … Solomon’s stables, to name a few. Excavators Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin explain why they are going “Back to Megiddo.” Included in their comprehensive survey is a sampling of Megiddo’s famed “Ivory Treasure.”