Five local students and their archaeology professor went to Armageddon this summer, not to search for clues to a cosmic battle yet to come between Good and Evil, but to seek understanding of civilizations past.
One of the most important issues they addressed was whether a palace attributed to King Solomon in what is now northern Israel was in fact built by Solomon, the son of King David renowned for his wise leadership and for his illicit relationship with the queen of Sheba.
Some archaeologists think the palace Megiddo, near Haifa, Israel, was built by King Solomon. The city at Megiddo was destroyed and rebuilt 25 times.
(Photos Eric Cline)
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It's no small question, and it has great significance for Jews and Christians alike, said Eric Cline, associate professor of ancient history and anthropology at George Washington University, who co-directed a dig on a hill about 15 miles southeast of Haifa, Israel, known as Megiddo. (Armageddon is a Greek corruption of the Hebrew word har, meaning mount, and Megiddo.)
Little evidence has been uncovered to prove Solomon's ties to a particular building -- or to prove that he existed at all. Some European scholars who call themselves "biblical minimalists" maintain that Solomon is a mythological figure, a kind of Jewish King Arthur.
"These guys are nuts," Cline said in a terse assessment of their thinking.
Cline and other archaeologists believe that the so-called Solomon's Palace at Megiddo, which some consider a cornerstone in understanding Solomon's life and times, was constructed in the 9th century B.C., a century after Solomon's reign. This conclusion is based on recent excavations at the site, which is one of the world's richest archaeological fields and has yielded the layered remains of two dozen cities over a 6,000-year period.
Strategically located on the Via Maris, the region's primary highway connecting Egypt in the south with Syria and Mesopotamia to the north and east, Megiddo guarded the agriculturally rich Jezreel Valley 70 to 100 feet below. Generations of inhabitants in a city that was destroyed and rebuilt 25 times looked down on bloody conflicts involving armies of such groups as Assyrians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Israelites, Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Crusaders and Germans.
Napoleon fought there in 1799, winning a battle against the Ottoman army but losing the campaign to control the region. In 1918, the British army defeated the Turks in a decisive battle that wrested control of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire for the first time in 400 years.
Megiddo is important to biblical scholars because it was inhabited during every period of the Hebrew Bible. "It's simply the most important site of the biblical period in the country," said David Ussishkin, 68, one of three directors of the Megiddo Expedition, based at Tel Aviv University.
This summer's dig was the sixth installment of the expedition, which was launched in 1992 and brings excavators to the site every two years. Earlier digs were conducted by the German Society for Oriental Research, from 1903 to 1905; the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, from 1925 through 1939; and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from the late 1960s through the early 1970s.
George Washington University is one of half a dozen colleges in partnership with Tel Aviv, supplying student volunteers who work three or more weeks on the site, in one or two sessions, and professors who teach classes and supervise portions of the excavation. Few if any American students participated in the 2002 excavation because of security concerns after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and increased violence between Palestinians and Israelis.
The 20-acre site, managed by the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, is laid out in a grid with such identifying labels as H, J, K, L and M. Mapping the site allows different generations of archaeologists to compare findings.
Cline's students, who registered through Tel Aviv University and joined their professor at the site, didn't find an inscription or other definitive evidence to connect the palace to Solomon, who the Bible says built Megiddo as part of a construction program that included a temple at Jerusalem (1 Kings 9:15).
But the students, most of whom plan careers in archaeology, seemed to care little about the broad-reaching historical debates among their mentors, according to interviews after their return to the United States.
