MAGEDDO. - Once a powerful city of Palestine (Heb. Mëghiddō[n]; Septuagint Μαγεδώ or Μαγεδδών; Egyp. M'ktj; el-'Amärnah Makiddu; Assyrian Magidü), identified with Tell el-Mutesellim, on the spur of the eastern chain of Carmel, 30 km south of Haifa, dominating the caravan route that from Egypt, through the pass of M., led into Mesopotamia.
Beneath its walls Thutmose III defeated the coalition of the kings of Syria and Palestine, and the city, as appears from the el-'Amärnah letters, thereafter remained loyal to pharaonic sovereignty. Joshua killed its king (Josh. 12:21), but M., although assigned to the Manassites (Josh. 17:11; 1 Chron. 7:29), remained Canaanite until the battle of Sisera "at the waters [Kishon] of M." (Judg. 5:19). Fortified by Solomon (1 Kings 9:15), it became the administrative seat of a prefecture (ibid. 4:12). Two kings of Judah, Ahaziah and Josiah, met their death there (2 Kings 9:27; 23:30).
Incorporated into the Assyrian province, M. went on steadily declining; it no longer had historical importance in Hellenistic times. The Romans established the camp of the legio VI ferrata at the foot of the hill, where in the 4th century a village arose with the name of Legeon or Legio, today Leggün. The name M. enters into the formation of Armageddon, battlefield of the kings of the earth against the Almighty (Rev. 16:16).
The tell, of irregular oval shape (385 m. by 230), with an area of more than 5 hectares, partially explored by a German society in the years 1903-1905, was systematically uncovered in numerous campaigns from 1925 to 1939 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Through the levels of 20 archaeological strata, the historical evolution of the city has been traced, with more or less certainty, from its foundation (end of the 5th millennium) to its extinction (350 B.C.), through the various phases of occupation by the Canaanite, Hyksos, Egyptian, Philistine and Israelite civilizations. Besides the earliest troglodytic dwellings and the first archaic village, represented by remains of floors with curious drawings of animals and hunting and by a small temple (stratum XIX), of the greatest interest is the architecture of the massive stone walls built in the 3rd millennium and the circuit of the city with gates of the 2nd millennium.
In an area, called sacred, the primitive temple was succeeded by three others identical in dimensions and plan, next to a large circular stone altar with a flight of steps. In the Governor's Palace five different periods were likewise recognized, and beneath the fifth was discovered the rich collection of precious objects with more than 200 ivories with engravings and drawings. On one of these is represented a prince, perhaps the king of M., celebrating his victory on a chariot drawn by horses and escorted by naked prisoners.
The Israelite city, with its massive walls and its pincer gate with three recesses, with a perfect hydraulic system for supplying itself with water from the spring outside the walls, is of great interest for the discovery of a complex of stables, capable of holding about 400 horses. There is a central corridor, flanked by stables with pillars at the entrance serving the double purpose of supporting the ceiling and of tying the horses to them, stone mangers between the pillars and in the floor a drainage channel for the refuse. In the Governor's Palace a graffito was noted with the so-called knot or star of David. A fragment of a stele recalls the passage of the pharaoh Shishak, who in his inscription in the temple of Karnak boasts of the capture of the city of M. The rich and abundant material, collected especially in the necropolis, allows a very precise knowledge of the metal industry in the various epochs of Canaan, a classification of the pottery and the study of the scarabs grouped by strata.
Bibliography6 works
Palestine, completed by G. E. Wright, The discoveries at Megiddo 1935-39, in Bibl. archaeologist, 13 (1950), pp. 28-46.
Donato Baldi