1. Archaeology of the Holy Land #3 of 4

2. Megiddo (in Jezreel Valley)
25 levels of settlement spanning 3000 yrs
Megiddo Expedition

3. Activities at Megiddo “Dig”

5. From the “Megiddo Expedition” Website
Megiddo is the jewel in the crown of biblical archaeology. 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.

6. From the “Megiddo Expedition” Website
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. No wonder that it was the inspiration for James Michener's bestseller, The Source.
Megiddo's importance was undoubtedly due to its role as a way station and control point for international trade. Its strategic location on the Via Maris (the major international military and trade route of antiquity that linked Egypt in the south with Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia in the north and east), gave it control of a bottleneck where the road emerges from the narrow 'Aruna Pass into the fertile Jezreel Valley.

7. From the “Megiddo Expedition” Website
The Directors of the Expedition wish to send our most sincere THANK YOU to all of you who participated this season! This was one of the best seasons ever and this is due in large part to the enthusiastic, hard-working, and just plain amazing group of students and volunteers. We're already looking forward anxiously to 2018, when we know many of you will be back to do it again!
The Megiddo Expedition is conducted under the auspices of Tel Aviv University. Consortium members are The George Washington University, Vanderbilt University, The University of Oklahoma, the Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP), Fuller Theological Seminary, Loyola Marymount University. The Expedition is directed by Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv University), Matthew J. Adams (W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research) and Mario A.S. Martin (Tel Aviv University).

8. History of the “Megiddo Expedition”
Megiddo has been excavated three times in the past, and has yielded some of the richest finds ever found in Israel. Gottlieb Schumacher conducted the first excavations at the site from , on behalf of the German Society for Oriental Research.

9. History of the “Megiddo Expedition”
In 1925, excavations at Megiddo were renewed by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. This large-scale undertaking…continued until the outbreak of World War II in These excavations revealed twenty major levels of occupation, covering the entire history of the site. The most important remains were the sacred compound, the monumental fortifications and gates, the impressive water systems of the site, various palaces, and the so-called 'Solomonic stables’.
Yigael Yadin carried out a few short seasons of excavation at Megiddo in the 1960s and early 1970s on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He partially uncovered the monumental Palace 6000, generally attributed to King Solomon, in an attempt to clarify the complicated stratigraphic problems related to the Iron Age remains at the site.

10. History of the “Megiddo Expedition”
The previous excavations at Megiddo laid the foundation for the discipline of biblical archaeology. However, archaeological methods were still in their infancy and nearly every layer and major architectural feature, in fact, almost every wall and vessel unearthed at the site, has become the focus of fierce scholarly dispute (see, for instance, The Chronology Debate in the Publication section)
The current expedition under Tel Aviv University began in 1994 and continues.
From the Megiddo Expedition Website

11. Archaeological Periods
Chalcolithic BC/BCE
Early Bronze BC/BCE
Middle Bronze BC/BCE
Late Bronze BC/BCE
Iron Age I BC/BCE
Iron Age II BC/BCE
Persian BC/BCE
Hellenistic (& Hasmonaean) 332 BCE - 37 AD
Herodian (& Early Roman) AD
Late Roman & Byzantine AD