Tel Megiddo

Megiddo controlled the entrance to the Wadi Ara pass, one of the principal routes linking Egypt and the southern Levant with the Jezreel Valley, Galilee, Syria, and Mesopotamia. This strategic position accounts for the city's extraordinary military importance.

The mound contains more than thirty settlement layers extending across thousands of years. Bronze Age Megiddo was a major Canaanite city and appears in Egyptian records.

Pharaoh Thutmose III fought a famous battle at Megiddo in the fifteenth century BC and subsequently besieged the city. Egyptian accounts of this campaign provide one of the earliest detailed descriptions of an ancient military battle.

Iron Age Megiddo contained monumental gates, palaces, fortifications, water installations, and large pillared structures whose functions and dates have generated extensive archaeological discussion. Assyria captured the city in the eighth century BC and incorporated the region into its provincial system.

Biblical Megiddo is securely identified with Tel Megiddo, Tell el-Mutesellim, overlooking the western side of the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel.

The geographical position, ancient Egyptian records, archaeological remains, and continuity of the historical name make the identification certain.

The modern mound preserves remains from many different periods. Individual structures should therefore be dated independently rather than automatically assigned to Solomon or another biblical ruler.