All language subtitles for Lost.Treasures.of.the.Bible.Secrets.of.Faith.S01E03.720p.WEB.H264-SHIIIT_track4_[eng]

Opa, what is this?

[Narrator] In the north
of modern-day Israel,

archaeologists uncover
precious objects

buried in the rubble
of a destroyed city.

[Archaeologist] It's a mother
of pearl, within a mudbrick,

that's quite unique.

[Narrator] They unearth
ancient idols.

[Archaeologist]
It's a head of a figurine,

and it's painted in red.

[Narrator] And broken statues
from another land...

Egypt.

[Archaeologist]
It seems that someone

really smashed those statues

and then just threw the pieces
in all directions.

[Narrator] Discoveries here
could shed light on the truth

behind one of the most famous
stories in the Bible...

Exodus,
and the mysterious world

of the Ark of the Covenant.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The stories in the Bible
are famous across the world.

They tell of great battles
between good and evil,

earth-shaking catastrophes...

and epic heroes.

One of the most famous stories
in the Bible is the Exodus,

the Israelites' flight
from captivity in Egypt.

This saga includes the creation
of the 10 Commandments,

the construction of
the Ark of the Covenant,

and the use of this holy object

to conquer what the Bible calls
the Promised Land.

[Archaeologist] The biblical
stories of the Exodus from Egypt

are great stories,
but they do have a problem

when you confront them
with archaeological record.

[Narrator] The tales are
foundation stories

for Judaism and Christianity.

How far might real people
and historical events

lie behind them?

Now, new archaeological
discoveries

buried in the Middle East
for thousands of years

could shed light on the world

that gave rise
to these legends.

[Archaeologist] We have some
fragments of mother of pearl

within a mudbrick.

[Narrator]
International teams of experts

dig through centuries of earth
to piece together

the age of the Exodus
and the secrets of the Ark.

♪ ♪

At the northern tip
of modern-day Israel

lies the ancient site
of Tel Hazor.

Archaeologist Igor Kreimerman
leads a team of 50

investigating an enormous
ancient settlement here.

[Igor Kreimerman] It's a great
excitement to be in the field.

It's fascinating to solve
all the riddles

that come up as we excavate,

and we are always surprised
by the finds and by the site.

[Narrator] Tel Hazor is
one of the largest

archaeological sites in Israel.

According to the Old Testament,

it was the greatest city
in a land called Canaan,

the region which
the biblical authors

called the Promised Land,
and believed

that their ancestors
had fled to from Egypt.

[Igor] Victoria,
what have you found here?

[Narrator] Igor wants
to find out more

about the age
of the Canaanite city

and if it can shed any light
on the biblical tale.

So today he and his team
are digging

inside one of its buildings.

[Igor] We have here
some signs of a wall

and then we have a layer
of plaster, right?

[Victoria] Yes.
[Igor] Wow!

This is very impressive.

[Narrator] The preservation
of this wall,

with its plasterwork still
in situ, is a rare find.

[Igor] If we think
about these walls,

they should be two meters high,

and if we have already
plaster at the top,

probably it will continue
all the way down.

[Victoria] Way down, yes.

[Narrator] The tall, plastered
walls tell Igor

that this may have
been a palace.

♪ ♪

As they dig deeper,
more evidence emerges.

Opa, what is this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow. Scratch here.

What is it, a mother-of-pearl?
Possibly.

Yeah, it looks like.

There are also some pieces here.

Yeah.

[Igor] We have here some
fragments of mother of pearl,

which are basically fragments of
a type of seashell that we find.

It's quite interesting
because in this complex,

we've found quite a few
fragments of those seashells.

[Narrator] The crushed pieces
of mother of pearl

offer little hint to what
object they once belonged.

But the fact they're here at
all, 30 miles from the coast,

implies this was a wealthy
and sophisticated city.

[Igor] Naturally there are
no shells in this area.

It suggests that were
brought here from somewhere

probably to create some sort of
jewelry or inlays and so on.

[Narrator] Discoveries here
tell Igor that this palace

dates to a time known
as the Late Bronze Age.

This was a period that
began around 1600 BCE,

roughly 1,000 years
after the construction

of Egypt's Great Pyramid.

[Igor] This is
a Late Bronze Age structure,

it was constructed probably
during the 14th century BCE.

This is one of the biggest
and most impressive structures

that we have from the
Late Bronze Age in the region.

[Narrator] The Late Bronze Age
is a period

of particular interest

for experts investigating
the Exodus story.

The Bible seems to put
the arrival of the Israelites

in Canaan around 1405 BCE.

This would place it
right in the middle

of the Late Bronze Age.

♪ ♪

The impressive Bronze Age
settlement at Tel Hazor

resembles the one
described in the Bible.

But the historical truth
of the Exodus

and the Ark
of the Covenant story

is one of the most
controversial questions

in biblical archaeology.

So what more do
archaeologists know

about the land of Canaan
at this time?

♪ ♪

More than 120 miles away
in central Israel

lies the ancient site
of Tel Es-Safi.

Archaeologist Aren Maeir leads
a small team investigating

another people who lived
in Canaan, the Philistines.

[Aren Maeir] According
to the biblical texts,

there are five major
Philistine cities.

This was the site
of Philistine Gath.

[Narrator] The Bible says
the Philistines

were fierce warriors who lived
in southern Canaan,

close to Egypt.

♪ ♪

It tells how the Israelites
took a detour

into the Sinai Desert
so they could avoid them.

[Aren] Christina,
you want coffee?

[Christina] Yes.

[Narrator] Today, Aren and the
team have a rare opportunity

to learn more about
the Philistines

by excavating
one of their tombs.

[Aren] What are these crazy
archaeologists doing?

[Narrator] The team covers up
to guard against ticks

as they prepare to head into
the tomb inside a narrow cave.

♪ ♪

Ticks carry a virus
known as cave fever,

and other dangers may be
lurking in the dark.

[Aren] So you work this way,
Christina, you work over here,

I'm gonna work over here.

Oh, yes, Aren, give me
the snake area, thank you.

Okay.

[Narrator] Aren has been digging
at Gath for almost 30 years.

There are very few intact
Philistine burials,

so tombs like this one
are particularly important.

♪ ♪

[Aren] We're digging in this
specific location, in this cave,

because we're looking
for Philistine burials,

because how people
buried their dead

and what we sometimes call
the deathscape,

is a very, very important part
of understanding a culture.

[Narrator] The Philistines
appear to have had

a different culture to that
of their neighbors in Canaan.

Aren wants to understand why.

[Aren] Nowadays with modern
bio-archaeological techniques

such as DNA and isotope
and other methods,

we can learn a lot about
their genetics, their origins,

their health, their diet,
and all kinds of other aspects.

Oh, nice!
[Christina] Yes.

[Aren] A big one.
[Christina] Yeah.

[Narrator] Their first find
is not human remains,

but a piece of pottery.

[Aren] It's a fragment
of a juglet,

and hopefully it means that
there's gonna be more soon.

You can excavate a tomb
and be fortunate

and find very well
preserved remains,

and it could also be
that you won't find it.

And there's really
no way of knowing

until you excavate the tomb.

Now that's the nature
of archaeology.

[Narrator] Even small bits
of pottery are important.

They can help archaeologists
to date a tomb.

Most of the pottery here

comes from a period
known as the Iron Age.

[Aren] What have you got there?

[Christina] Burnished pottery.

[Aren] Yeah, this seems to be
some sort of a chalice,

and based on its decoration,

it seems very nicely dated to
the Late Iron I, Early Iron IIA.

Yeah, now let's just find
the rest of it, yeah.

[Christina] Okay,
I'll keep working.

[Aren] Yeah. [chuckles]

[Narrator] Pottery like this
confirms that the Philistines

did live in southern Canaan
just as the Bible says.

But it reveals that the city
of Gath was at its height

much later than the commonly

supposed biblical date
of the Exodus.

[Aren] From what we have found
so far, it indicates

that we have a rather
limited amount of time

in which there was extensive
activity in this tomb,

probably during the 11th
and 10th century BCE.

[Narrator] The earliest mention
of a people

believed to be the Philistines

dates to the 12th century BCE,

at least 200 years
after the Bible implies

the Exodus took place.

It would mean the Israelites
took a detour

to avoid a people
who were not even here.

This is a hint that the
archaeology may not align

with the biblical narrative.

So how did the Israelites
and the Ark

end up in what the Bible calls
the Promised Land?

[Narrator] According to
the Bible's Book of Genesis,

the ancestors of the Israelites
traveled to Egypt

to escape a famine in Canaan.

Here, they settled
in the Nile Delta,

encouraged by Joseph,
who had risen

to become the pharaoh's
most trusted advisor.

Joseph prophesized that
one day the Israelites

would return home,

the story that would eventually
form the basis for Exodus.

What evidence is there
for its setting in Egypt?

♪ ♪

Egyptologist Chris Naunton
investigates

one possible historical lead,

an inscribed amulet
known as a scarab.

[Chris Naunton] So, scarabs like
this one are little objects

which take the shape
of a dung beetle.

For the Egyptians, it was used

to represent the sun god.

They observed dung beetles

rolling balls of dung

across the desert and associated
that with the idea

of this sun disc
moving across the sky.

[Narrator] Scarabs carry
inscriptions

on their underside,

often bearing the name of
a pharaoh or royal figure.

[Chris] The important bit is
in the central column.

But I can see the very top part
of a shepherd's crook,

which is part of the Egyptian
word heqa, which means ruler.

[Narrator] The end of
the inscription is missing,

but similar scarabs have been
found which are complete.

They allow Chris to work out

that part of the lost text

once said "foreign lands."

[Chris] So we've got
"ruler of foreign lands,"

and that phrase in the Egyptian
is Heqa-Khasut,

and that becomes
the Greek word, Hyksos.

[Narrator] The Hyksos are among
Egypt's most mysterious rulers.

Inscriptions like this scarab
reveal they were pharaohs,

but their ancestors had
migrated to Egypt from Canaan.

[Chris] It's very much
an Egyptian object,

it's an Egyptian inscription,
but clearly relating to somebody

who is foreign and yet
has enough power

to take over at least the north
of Egypt and probably beyond.

[Narrator] 3,700 years ago,
the Hyksos settled

in Egypt's northern delta.

They brought powerful new ideas
from the Near East,

horses and light chariots
that changed Egyptian warfare.

♪ ♪

They held power
for over 100 years

and ended up ruling
northern Egypt

from their capital at Avaris.

Eventually the southern
Egyptian kings

sought to reclaim Egypt,

besieging the Hyksos'
stronghold

and driving them out.

The story of the Hyksos

intrigues biblical
investigators,

because it bears
remarkable similarities

with the events
leading up to the Exodus.

[Chris] The idea of the Hyksos
coming from Canaan

is very interesting
from the point of view

of the Bible narrative,

because of course there are
crucial parts of the Bible story

that involve the passage of
people from Canaan into Egypt

and back out again.

[Narrator] To find out more,
Chris takes a closer look

at the scarab.

It displays the name
of a Hyksos king.

[Chris] It's followed by the
signs which spell out the name

Khyan, who was one of the kings
of the 15th Dynasty.

[Narrator] Egypt's 15th Dynasty
was overthrown around 1530 BCE.

This is more than 100 years

before the biblical
chronology of Exodus.

So could the Exodus be
a cultural memory

of the expulsion of the Hyksos
only retold slightly later?

♪ ♪

A clue may lie to the north
at Tel Hazor.

As the dig team
continues to reveal

the mammoth Bronze Age ruins
of this Canaanite city,

Igor examines
an intriguing find.

[Igor] We found right over here
this fragment of a statue.

You can see that
it is made of granite,

and you see all those sparks

of the inclusions
of the granite.

[Narrator] Granite is not
local to the region;

it suggests this statue
was made elsewhere.

[Igor] We know that
normally artifacts

that were produced from
granite come from Egypt.

[Narrator] This is not
the first statue piece

the team has found.

In the ruins
of Canaanite Hazor,

archaeologists uncovered one of
the oldest Egyptian artifacts

ever found outside of Egypt--

the feet of a lion
carved from rock

inscribed with a cartouche
of Pharaoh Menkaure,

the builder of the third
pyramid at Giza.

This was once part of a sphinx,

a lion's body fused
with a king's face,

the symbol of royal power
and divine protection.

Why is this ancient Egyptian
beast in Canaanite Hazor?

♪ ♪

Igor thinks the answer
could lie

in the age and identity
of the sphinx.

Menkaure, the pharaoh
whose head once adorned it,

lived more than 1,000 years
before the palace here.

[Igor] What's quite unique
about Egyptian statues at Hazor

is that we find them
in Late Bronze Age context.

But nonetheless, they were
produced much earlier.

So that would suggest
that perhaps those statues

were traded not for
who they represented,

because those people
were long deceased,

but probably for
their aesthetic value.

[Narrator] These statues would
have been worthless

to the Egyptians.

But their presence at Tel Hazor
could be a clue

to the relationship
between Canaan

and its powerful
neighbor, Egypt.

[Igor] They're of
much higher quality,

they're very impressive,

everyone would identify them
as Egyptian.

So probably the king of Hazor
would like to brag,

"Well, look at the statues
in my palace,

how impressive they are."

[Narrator] Archaeologists are
not sure what happened

to the Hyksos
after their defeat.

But the evidence
from Tel Hazor reveals

that during the succeeding
18th Dynasty,

the people of Canaan became
part of the Egyptian empire.

[Igor] The Egyptians had
a stronghold in Canaan

to supervise tax collection,
and Canaan was basically

part of the Egyptian empire
in this sense.

[Narrator]
The story of the Hyksos

has many intriguing
similarities

with that of Exodus,

but it differs in
one critical respect.

At the time the Bible implies
the Exodus took place,

Canaan was no safe refuge
from the power of the pharaohs.

♪ ♪

Why would the Israelites
flee from Egypt

to a region that was
controlled by Egypt?

[Narrator] At Tel Es-Safi
in central Israel,

the site of ancient Gath,

the team continues searching
the cave tombs for clues

to how and when Philistine
culture emerged in Canaan.

[Aren]
Yeah, I think that's good.

[Christina] Is that good?

[Narrator] The Bible refers to
the Philistines as invaders

coming from a land
known as Caphtor,

which some suggest may be
modern-day Crete

in the Aegean Sea.

The problem is that the Bible
says little else about them,

and focuses on their later
conflicts with the Israelites.

[Aren] The Bible tells us
limited information

about the interaction

between the Israelites
and the Philistines.

The big question of course is

what is the historicity
of these descriptions?

[Narrator] Aren's team found
what could be a clue

in another part of the site.

[Aren] And in Area D,
we found a large temple

that was used over a period
of about 200 years.

And in the innermost
part of the temple

there was a very interesting
stone altar.

[Narrator] The stone altar
has horns,

the type that was used by
various cultures in the region.

But the one at Gath has a key
difference in its appearance.

[Aren] Most Levantine altars
have four horns,

and what's unique about this
altar as opposed to most altars

that are depicted and found
archaeologically

that have four horns,

this one only has two
in the front, one and two.

[Narrator] Altars with two horns
are found more commonly

on Cyprus and the Greek
island of Crete.

Aren thinks this unusual altar
points to the Philistines

being a foreign people
who migrated to Canaan.

[Aren] This one has two, because
it also combines traditions

coming from the Aegean and from
the Cypriot cult traditions.

[Narrator] The Philistines
first appeared in Canaan

during the early
12th century BCE.

This was a time known as

the Late Bronze Age Collapse,

when many different
civilizations

fell across the region.

Some archaeologists believe
that the Philistines began life

as seaborne raiders
from the Aegean

who settled in Canaan
around this time,

before eventually integrating
with the local population.

[Aren] The Philistine culture is
a culture that is comprised

of many different groups
that came to this region

at the transition between the
Late Bronze and the Iron Age.

And they were people who came
from the Aegean region,

from Cyprus, Anatolia,

side by side with people who
came from Levant, Canaanites,

and this is what we call
an entangled culture.

[Narrator] The arrival
of the Philistines

at this troubled time,

much later than the Bible
implies they were here,

raises an intriguing
possibility.

Could the story of the Exodus
also be a folk memory

of the Bronze Age Collapse?

♪ ♪

In the north at Tel Hazor,

Igor is exploring the Canaanite
city's ultimate fate.

He wants to know how and when
it came to an end.

[Igor] The destruction of Hazor
is one of the most

puzzling questions that
we have regarding this city.

[Narrator] Inside the palace,
one wall looks very different

to the fine plaster
he discovered earlier.

[Igor] Here we can see
the mudbrick courses

and also the cement
between the courses.

The mudbricks are burnt due
to the fierce destruction

at the end
of the Late Bronze Age.

[Narrator] The intense fire
is not the only evidence

of destruction here.

Igor takes a closer look
at the broken statue fragment.

The damage appears
to be intentional.

On it, he can make out
what look like chisel marks.

♪ ♪

[Igor] The fact that
you have chisel marks

and someone really put energy
into destroying those statues,

shows that it was deliberate.

Not only that we find
only fragments,

most of these fragments

had not really been even
attached one to the other,

so it seems that someone
really smashed those statues,

chiseled them, and then
just threw the pieces

in all directions.

[Narrator] Igor believes
the destruction of Tel Hazor

was no accident;

someone deliberately
destroyed this palace.

The question is who?

A clue could lie
with the statues.

[Igor] The destruction of
statues represent disrespect

for certain for most
of the Egyptian culture.

In this case, all the Egyptian
statues were obliterated

in an act of complete
disrespect to the Egyptians.

[Narrator]
In the mid 12th century BCE,

Egyptian power
declined in Canaan

during the Late Bronze Age
Collapse.

One possibility is that
its people might have risen up

against their
Egyptian overlords.

But mixed into
the destruction debris,

Igor and the team also find
another damaged statue.

[Igor] Oh, wow!

[Narrator] A tiny figurine
of a calf god.

[Igor] This figurine is
not Egyptian, per se,

it's also very typical
to Canaanite culture.

So I think it's more related
to Canaanite culture

rather than to Egyptian,

but it still was found
in the same context.

[Narrator] Igor thinks whoever
destroyed this city

was an outsider and had
no respect for its gods.

[Igor] We know the destruction
was ideologically driven,

because both Egyptian statues
and Canaanite statues

were shattered into pieces
during the destruction.

Therefore, it is clear
that whoever destroyed Hazor

did not see himself neither
as Egyptian nor Canaanite.

[Narrator]
Some archaeologists believe

the recently arrived
Philistines

or other seaborne raiders
could be to blame.

But there is another
possibility.

The biblical authors say
Tel Hazor was one of the cities

destroyed by the Israelites.

Did an army of invading
Israelites conquer Canaan?

[Narrator] At Tel Hazor
in northern Israel,

Igor takes a closer look

at the damaged Canaanite
figurine of a calf.

[Igor] You can see here
the horns, and this is the face,

and it's all painted in red.

Here we see two of the legs,

it's of course broken
on this side.

[Narrator] The figure of a calf
as an object of worship

plays an important role

in the next part
of the story of Exodus.

After escaping Egypt,
Moses led the Israelites

through the desert
to Mount Sinai.

He climbed the mountain and
stayed for 40 days and nights

where God gave him
two stone tablets,

carved with
the 10 Commandments.

♪ ♪

While Moses was on Mount Sinai,
the Israelites felt abandoned,

and used their gold
to make an idol.

They formed a golden calf
and began to worship it.

♪ ♪

The biblical story
never identifies

the name of the idol.

But other chapters do mention
a popular Canaanite deity

called Baal, who was often
associated with a calf.

[Igor] The calf normally
represented the storm god,

and that's the animal associated
with the storm god,

and we know that the storm god
was the main deity of the city.

[Narrator] The Old Testament
calls Baal a false god

and a rival
of the Hebrew god Yahweh.

Intriguingly,
the rejection of false gods

is the very first Commandment.

♪ ♪

When Moses descended from
Mount Sinai and saw the idol,

he smashed the tablets with
the Commandments in anger

and destroyed the calf.

Moses climbed Mount Sinai
once more,

carrying two new
blank stone tablets,

and pleaded with God until
he inscribed them again.

♪ ♪

So, might the Israelites
have smashed

the Egyptian and Canaanite
statues at Tel Hazor?

♪ ♪

At Oxford in the UK,

Lara Bampfield is an expert
in ancient texts.

She's examining the links
between the Israelites'

10 Commandments and another
ancient set of laws,

the Law Code of Hammurabi.

It is written in the ancient
script of Mesopotamia

called cuneiform.

[Lara Bampfield] This is
the Law Code of Hammurabi,

and it is a tall, black stele
made of hard stone.

And at the top we have an image
followed by the cuneiform script

which is split between an
epilogue and then lines of laws.

[Narrator] The laws are named
after King Hammurabi,

a ruler of ancient Babylon.

They set out what his subjects
should not do,

and the punishments if
these rules are broken.

Some bear intriguing
similarities

with the additional laws given
by God to Moses in Exodus.

[Lara] The Law Code of Hammurabi
sets out some laws

which are actually
quite similar.

There are a couple of lines
that are almost identical,

for example, an eye for an eye,

a tooth for a tooth,
or a bone for a bone.

[Narrator] The dating
of the Hammurabi stele

makes the similarities between
these two codes puzzling.

[Lara] The Code of Hammurabi
was written about 1700 BCE,

whereas the first record
of the Israelites

was about 1200 BCE.

[Narrator] Lara's work explores
ways in which common texts

and ideas can spread
between cultures.

[Lara] Cuneiform was
an international script,

which meant lots of different
people would have used it.

This would have helped spread
the knowledge about Babylon,

about King Hammurabi
and about his laws.

It seems very likely that the
Israelites would have copied

some of these ideas
through exchange and trade

from the Mesopotamians.

[Narrator] Cuneiform tablets
found at Tel Hazor

reveal that Canaanite laws
might also have drawn upon

the Code of Hammurabi

or similar
Mesopotamian traditions.

But what set them apart
from the Israelites

was the rivalry
between their gods.

So what evidence is there
that a people called Israel

were even here at the time
this city was destroyed?

The answer could lie with
the next chapter of the saga...

...the conquest of Canaan
and the Ark of the Covenant.

[Narrator] The Bible's
Book of Exodus

portrays the Israelites
as nomads,

who conquered the land
of Canaan by force.

They used a sacred object
of great power,

the Ark of the Covenant.

The Bible says the Ark
was constructed

to hold the 10 Commandments.

It represented God's presence
among the Israelites,

who carried it with them as
they wandered in the wilderness

for 40 years.

♪ ♪

It's said the Ark parted
the waters of the River Jordan,

allowing the Israelites
to cross into Canaan.

And it helped to bring down
the walls of Jericho,

the first Canaanite city
to fall.

Discoveries reveal that
this city, like Tel Hazor,

was destroyed in
the Late Bronze Age.

So how does the biblical story
match up with the archaeology?

In central Israel lies

the ancient settlement
of Beit Shemesh.

Archaeologist Danny Herman
investigates clues

that might reveal more about
the story of the conquest.

[Danny Herman] The role
of the Ark of the Covenant

in the conquest of the land
is quite pivotal.

[Narrator] The early history
of Beit Shemesh

is not well understood,

but its name hints
at Canaanite origins.

[Danny] Beit Shemesh, whose name
means "House of the Sun,"

that alone is quite interesting,

possibly preserving
a vague memory

of Canaanite worship
here of the sun.

[Narrator] The Bible says that
Beit Shemesh was part

of the Canaanite territory
assigned to the tribe of Judah

after the conquest.

Archaeology reveals that
an Israelite settlement

had developed here
by the 10th century BCE.

[Danny] It's quite clear,
both from the Book of Joshua

and from archaeology, that
the Canaanites who lived here

in this lower level
were replaced

with an upper level
of Israelites.

[Narrator] Beit Shemesh also
features in a story

about the Ark of the Covenant
being carried into battle.

♪ ♪

Hundreds of years
after the Exodus,

the Israelites used
the Ark once more,

this time against
the Philistines

who defeat them and capture it.

The Philistines put the Ark
in a temple

next to a statue of their god,

but the next day,
the statue had fallen

and broken into pieces.

Wherever the Philistines take
the Ark, disaster befalls them,

tumors strike the people,

and mice consume the land.

Struck with fear, they place
the Ark on a cattle-drawn cart

and return it to the Israelites
at Beit Shemesh.

Danny explores a discovery
by a team of archaeologists

in one of Beit Shemesh's
buildings.

[Danny]
They uncovered this area.

Behind it a stone was found,

and not just any stone,
not round...

but rectangular.

And it's in the same dimensions
as the Ark of the Covenant.

[Narrator] The Bible describes
the Ark in incredible detail,

it tells how the Ark was
made from acacia wood,

two and a half cubits long
by one and a half cubits high,

and covered in gold.

A cubit is an ancient
measurement of length,

equivalent to a human forearm.

[Danny] This is
a cubit and a half,

and the length is one, two,
almost three cubits,

just a bit bigger than the size
of the Ark, which makes sense,

you want it to be a bit bigger
to hold it in a stable way.

[Narrator] The idea that the Ark
might have rested here

is an intriguing if
ultimately unprovable theory.

But the archaeology does show
that the Israelites

were here in Canaan
by the 10th century BCE

when this story was set.

The key question is whether
they were here even earlier

when cities like Tel Hazor
were destroyed.

A famous historical text
could shed light

on the biblical narrative.

[Danny] The first time that
the Israelites are mentioned

in a source outside the Bible
is in this famous stele,

this stone monument
of Merenptah.

[Narrator]
In the early 1200s BCE,

the Egyptian pharaoh Merenptah,

waged a military campaign
up into Canaan.

[Danny] He brags about
conquering Canaanite cities,

and in between he tells us
he also decimated a tribe,

not a city, but a nomadic tribe
that is called the Israelites.

[Narrator] The Egyptian
inscription dates

to around 1208 BCE,

and confirms that a people
known as the Israelites

were in this landscape

at the time of
the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

How long had they been here?

Could the answer reveal
the real story of the Exodus?

[Narrator] At Tel Hazor,
Igor hunts for evidence

that might reveal
who destroyed this city.

[Igor] After the Late Bronze Age
destruction,

first of all, we have
an occupation gap

of about 100 years when
the mound was abandoned.

[Narrator]
According to the Bible,

the Israelites
under the leader Joshua

defeated a Canaanite alliance
led by the king of Tel Hazor,

whose city was burned
to the ground.

Excavations reveal
that this city

was a powerful center
in Canaan,

that was destroyed by fire,

perhaps by someone who had
no regard for its gods.

Egyptian records also confirm
that a people called Israel

were in the region
at this time.

The problem is that a critical
part of the story is missing

from the Old Testament.

[Igor] When we look at
the Egyptian control of Canaan,

we don't see any evidence,
any memory, any remnant

of that picture
in the Hebrew Bible.

It is as if
it has never happened.

[Narrator] The complete absence
of the Egyptians

in the conquest story
is puzzling.

[Igor] One possibility is that
it was intentionally omitted

from the history
of early Israel.

But I will not see
any reason for doing so,

because if the Israelites
conquered the land

from the Egyptians and not the
Canaanites, why not say that?

It would show that
the Israelites are actually

much stronger than if they
just conquered the land

from those local Canaanites.

[Narrator] Igor believes
the answer may be that a people

who came to be known
as the Israelites

did destroy cities
like Tel Hazor,

but not when the Bible
says they did,

and not in a single,
swift campaign.

[Igor] It seems that Hazor
was one of the sites

that was brought down

by the early proto-Israelites,
if we wish.

But in contrast
to the biblical narrative,

they probably did not
come from Egypt,

they did not conquer
the land from the east,

but they emerged from
the Canaanite culture

and eventually brought it down.

They probably at some point
disregarded Canaanite ideology,

left the urban system and
eventually formed outside.

And once they had the chance,
and once Hazor was in decline,

that was their chance
to bring down

one of the largest
Canaanite cities,

one of most powerful kingdoms
of the Canaanites.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Many biblical
scholars believe

the stories of the Exodus
were written hundreds of years

after the events they describe.

Perhaps by the descendants
of the people

who destroyed Tel Hazor.

They saw the ruins
of the old city

and had only vague memories
of what had happened.

[Igor] It goes without saying

that the people
of Israel at Hazor

developed their own stories
about this structure--

what was it, who built it and
probably also who destroyed it.

And it is possible that
from generation to generation

the story gets told
again and again,

and eventually, that turned out
to be the story that we hear

in the Book of Joshua about
the conquest of massive Hazor.

[Narrator] The idea that
the people of the Exodus

never left, but instead
came from within Canaan,

is a controversial conclusion.

For many people of faith,

the stories of the Bible
are the literal word of God.

Many believe that the key
evidence for the Exodus

may still be out there.

[Danny] The fact that we can't
find evidence of an event

that happened 3,000 years ago
means it didn't happen?

No, archaeology has its limits.

One has to admit to the problem,

to the gap between
the narratives

and the lack of archaeological
evidence in some cases.

[Narrator] But now archaeology
reveals a new perspective

on the story of Exodus,

of an ancient world
that collapsed

at the end
of the Late Bronze Age

and the rise of a new one.

The biblical story tells of
a people who endured hardships,

pursued a journey from
a belief in many gods

to a belief in one,

and built a new
religious doctrine

symbolized by a holy relic,

the Ark of the Covenant.

The story of the Exodus is not
just intended to be history;

it is a promise.

It explained to the Israelites
who they were,

where they had come from,

and how, if they
kept the faith,

their covenant with God
would always bring them home.