Megiddo

Megiddo is over 6,000 years old. It is a tel (hill/mound) made of 26 layers of ruins of ancient cities. The name Armageddon mentioned in the New Testament derives from Har Megiddo (Hebrew) meaning Mount of Megiddo.

The picture above shows half of the gate of Solomon's palace (1 Kings 9:15)

If you look closely at the picture below you will see a sacrificing alter from over 5,000 years ago.

(circle of rocks: right side directly in between a wall of rocks and the black tent thing)

Archaeologists actually found bones of animals on the alter... including bones from a lion.

(anyone remember where we have heard of lions in this area?- 1 Samuel 17)

Below is a picture of the Jezreel Valley. The intersection of these two roads pictured is a key place and there have been several major battles here throughout history. Whoever controlled this area controlled these two key roads that connected the lands of Egypt and Assyria. Whether or not the reference in Revelation is a literal battle or a figurative one, everyone in that region would have been able to picture in their mind a battle waging in that valley:

Below is a huge silo with a spiral design that stored and protected food. Megiddo was clearly prepared from any type of attack with plenty of food and water storage inside the city walls.

Two stable complexes were excavated on Megiddo. There were holes in the pillars to attach the horses and even stone mangers were found in between the pillars to feed the horses.

The ancient water systems of Megiddo are fascinating. King Ahab had engineers dig a deep shaft and a horizontal tunnel through solid rock to reach a spring outside the city walls. This gave the Megiddo inhabitants fresh spring water inside the city walls and they camouflaged the spring on the outside, so their enemies would not realize their water supply actually came from outside Megiddo. We were able to descend many steps (in extreme heat!) into the water system and cross through the horizontal tunnel. (see picture below)

Unfortunately, their is just a trickle left of the spring (possibly because of earthquakes) but it amazes me how creative and intelligent these engineers were. Too bad we can't contact them to help with an oil spill. :)