All language subtitles for Lost.Treasures.of.the.Bible.Secrets.of.Faith.S01E06.720p.WEB.H264-SHIIIT_track4_[eng]

[Narrator] In northern Israel,

a team of archaeologists use
state-of-the-art equipment

to hunt for signs
of an ancient apocalypse.

We use the technology
of the future.

Wow!

Yeah, this is exciting.

Here we can see in real time.

I think that we should dig here.

[Narrator] The drone reveals
an ancient fortification

buried for nearly 3,000 years.

This is great, really.

This is fantastic.

[Narrator] These groundbreaking
discoveries could shed light

on the site's violent past.

And the truth behind one
of the Bible's most powerful

and disturbing tales,

the Battle of Armageddon.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The stories in the Bible
are famous across the world.

They tell of
earth-shaking catastrophes,

epic heroes,

and violent confrontations.

But the most
apocalyptic of all,

as told in the New Testament,

is a showdown between
the forces of good and evil

at the end of days

in a place called Armageddon.

This story intrigues
archaeologists,

because Armageddon
is a real place.

The ancient city of Megiddo
in northern Israel.

Why did the biblical authors
believe

that this was where
the world would end?

Now, experts are on a mission
to investigate the history

of this city
and the real events

that might have
inspired the story.

[Professor]
Why Megiddo? Why this place?

[Narrator] They use
pioneering technology...

[Assaf] Wow! Yeah,
this is quite exciting.

[Narrator] ...and study
ancient warfare...

[Yosef] Boom, boom.

We have a destroyed city.

[Narrator] ...to discover
the secrets of Armageddon.

The ancient city of Megiddo
lies in modern-day Isreal,

55 miles north of Jerusalem.

Here, archaeologist
Assaf Kleiman is on a mission

to decode the history of this
mysterious and important site.

[Assaf Kleiman] I've been
working at Megiddo 15 years,

and this site has
so many fantastic riddles

to be investigated.

[Narrator] Archaeological
evidence reveals people

first started living here
up to 9,000 years ago,

around 4,000 years before
the pyramids of Egypt.

[Assaf] Tel Megiddo
was inhabited

for thousands of years.

This site has more than
20 occupational layers.

[Narrator] Megiddo is mentioned
in the Old Testament 12 times,

usually in connection
with battles.

Its sole appearance
in the New Testament

is in the Book of Revelation,

as the site of the final battle
between good and evil.

[Assaf] Armageddon is
a corruption of the Hebrew term

"Har Megiddo,"
which can be translated

as "the mountain of Megiddo."

[Narrator] Revelation,
the last book of the Bible,

is a series
of doomsday prophecies

given to a mysterious author
known only as John,

in the first century CE.

Revelation foretells
the second coming of Christ.

In an epic battle,
heaven will open

and an army of angels
will descend.

Leading them is Jesus Christ.

On Earth, the devil
and his minions

assemble an army of evil

to march against
the heavenly legions.

[growling]

As the fate of the world
hangs in the balance,

Jesus and his army defeat
the forces of darkness

in a titanic battle
at a place called Armageddon.

Why did the writer
of Revelation name Megiddo

as the site of this
titanic battle?

Assaf explores the site's
impressive ruins

to investigate.

[Assaf] This is the gate
of Megiddo.

As we can see here,

the original stones were
preserved for more than a meter.

[Narrator] The gate dates
to the 14th century BCE.

It was built by a people
called the Canaanites.

We're actually speaking
about the original

populations that lived
here at Megiddo.

The Canaanites lived in this
region for thousands of years.

[Narrator] Megiddo is first
mentioned in the Old Testament

as a Canaanite city.

The Bible describes its people
as the enemy of the Israelites.

Could the events of this time
shed light on its significance

for the writer of Revelation?

To find out, archaeologists
investigate nearby towns

that share its history,

beginning 37 miles from Megiddo

at the vast archaeological site
of Tel Hazor.

Here, an excavation team
arrives at the break of dawn.

Today, they face
a race against time,

as a recent heatwave has
seen temperatures soar

above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Just like Megiddo,
Tel Hazor was a Canaanite city.

Archaeologist Igor Kreimerman
leads a team of 50 people here.

We do have some
plastered fragments.

To find them in situ
would be tremendous.

Let's hope for the best.

[Narrator] They unearth
the walls and stairs

of a huge structure.

[Igor Kreimerman]
Right over here, you can see

the section of a stair,

how it perfectly fits
the section of the pillar.

That's really the highest
level of stoneworking

in Canaanite culture.

It would suggest it is
a very important structure.

[Narrator] This building could
be up to 215,000 square feet

in area,
over three times the size

of an American football field.

[Igor] We must be
at the entrance

to the palace
of the king of Hazor.

[Narrator] But once inside,
Igor makes a discovery

that seems out of place.

[Igor] So here we see
those depressions

that are basically
troughs for animals

such as sheeps, goats,
donkeys, and horses.

[Narrator] Livestock roamed
the royal corridors,

a hint that all was not well
with Canaanite society.

[Igor] The fact that now animals
were brought to the palace

of the king probably
symbolizes the decline

of the power of the king
and of the ruling class.

[Narrator] Igor needs to dig
to find out why the palace

was turned into a place
for livestock.

Suddenly his team makes
a startling discovery.

[Igor] Oh, wow!

That's fantastic.

Also here.

It seems to be a pithos,
a large vessel

that was probably
about one meter 20 high.

[Narrator] The pithos jug
is scarred

by a very specific
kind of damage.

[Igor] We see this
very white material, right,

that's probably the contents
of that vessel,

and they just calcinated
due to intense heat.

[Narrator] Calcination is
when carbon is removed

from a substance by
very high temperatures,

changing its chemistry.

[Igor] It's really spectacular,

I've never seen
anything like that.

[Narrator] On the hunt for more
evidence of what happened here,

the team casts the net wider.

[Igor] You can see in here
burnt mud bricks.

At the bottom we see
the remains of charred wood,

probably wooden beams
that supported the roof

and just collapsed on the floor.

[Narrator] Together,
these clues build a picture

of Tel Hazor's
devastating fate.

At the end of the Bronze Age,

the whole Canaanite city
was destroyed by fire.

[Igor] The destruction layer
of Hazor

is dated to the late
13th century BC.

We have radiocarbon dates
to support this dating.

[Narrator] The obliteration
of Tel Hazor was part

of a wider pattern of
destruction across the region

at this time, which included
the city of Megiddo.

Who caused this damage?

In the Old Testament,
the destruction of Megiddo

is part of one of the most
famous Bible stories,

the conquest of Canaan
by the Israelites.

Moses leads the Israelite
people out of Egypt,

after 40 years
of wandering the desert

in search of what they call
the Promised Land.

They are led by
his successor, Joshua,

into Canaan, which they
must take by force.

They violently conquer
every city in Canaan,

including Tel Hazor
and Megiddo,

until the land is theirs
to divide amongst themselves.

But there's a puzzle.

Archaeologists aren't
sure who destroyed

all the Canaanite cities,

as there were many groups
of raiders active at the time.

[Igor] Some cities on the coast
could have been destroyed

by the Sea Peoples, some other
cities were, could have,

could have been destroyed
by other tribes

such as the Arameans
who were just on the right.

[Narrator] Many experts believe
the Old Testament story

was written by Israelite
authors hundreds of years

after these attacks
at Tel Hazor and Megiddo.

So why did they believe
their ancestors

were the ones who conquered
these cities?

[Narrator] At Tel Hazor,
away from the main excavation,

Igor Kreimerman explores
a much later part of the site.

After the destruction
in the 1300s,

there's scant evidence
that anyone lived here.

Until around
the 10th century BCE

when it was rebuilt
by new residents.

Massive double walls
and a six-chambered gate

are a characteristic
style of architecture

that reveals the new occupants
to be the Israelites.

But oddly, among
the new buildings

of this impressive city,

are the remains of
much older structures

dating from hundreds
of years before.

Why did the Israelite people

leave these ancient ruins
untouched?

[Igor] Look how well
the walls have preserved,

in certain places about
two meters above floor level;

that's quite unusual.

The reason that this structure
preserved so well

is that actually no Iron Age
structures were built on top.

[Narrator] The Israelites shied
away from altering the ruins.

[Igor] The people of the
Iron Age lived with those ruins

just in the heart of their city.

[Narrator] Even if
archaeologists can't be sure

they destroyed
the original city,

it's clear that remembering the
destruction was so important

to the Israelites that
they left the ruins

rather than covering them up.

[Igor] They reinterpreted
the ruins.

As time went on, some legends
and some stories developed

about the structure itself and
probably whoever destroyed it.

[Narrator] It's evidence
the Israelites were people

to whom the past mattered.

They preserved ruins
and recorded their history

through generations as
a chronical of their people

in the form of the Bible.

[Igor] 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.

[Narrator] The story
of the conquest of Canaan

is a major event in the
Old Testament Book of Joshua.

The biblical account tells
how the Israelites defeated

many cities;
Megiddo is mentioned.

But its minor role
in the narrative

means this event on its own is
unlikely to have influenced

the story in
the Book of Revelation.

So, was this the only battle
to take place here?

The very first mention
of Megiddo in history

dates to a time many centuries
before it appears in the Bible,

back in the 15th century BCE.

This record is found some
500 miles away from Megiddo

among the ancient wonders
of modern-day Luxor, Egypt.

The Karnak Temple Complex
is one of the largest

religious sites
of ancient Egypt.

Here, many temples were
built to honor the gods.

Inside one, dedicated to
the king of the gods, Amun-Re,

the walls are carved
with hieroglyphics.

They chart the military
victories of one pharaoh,

including an epic battle
at Megiddo.

Could this clash be
the one that inspired

the Book of Revelation story?

Egyptologist Chris Naunton
investigates

the Egyptian pharaoh
of the inscription,

a ruler called Thutmose III.

[Chris Naunton] We think
that this is an image

of Thutmose III,
who has the reputation

of being perhaps Egypt's
greatest warrior pharaoh.

[Narrator] Thutmose III ruled
Egypt in a period

known as the New Kingdom,

nearly a century before
the time of Tutankhamun.

[Chris] If there's one king
who more than any other

was responsible for the
expansion of Egypt's territory

and a series of incredible
victories, it is Thutmose III.

[Narrator] He expanded
Egyptian power into Canaan

as far as modern-day Syria.

But in 1457 BCE, the people
of Canaan decided to resist.

It was a threat to his power

that the mighty Thutmose
couldn't ignore.

[Chris] This is a big, big,
seriously bad moment

for Megiddo.

[Narrator] Thutmose assembled
a mighty army

of 20,000 men and chariots,

to attack the Canaanites
in Megiddo.

Against the advice
of his generals,

he led his troops through
a narrow mountain pass,

a highly risky move.

But it gave him
the element of surprise,

and in a titanic battle
at Megiddo,

he routed the Canaanite army.

After a siege of the city
that lasted seven months,

the rulers of Megiddo
eventually surrendered.

At Karnak, the fate
of Megiddo's citizens

is immortalized
in a stone relief.

[Chris] The king has triumphed
over his enemies

and is now holding them all
literally by the hair,

and he is about to bring about
their final defeat

with this thwack of his mace.

[Narrator] Never before had
a battle been recorded

in such detail;

the spoils of war revealing
Megiddo's wealth.

[Chris] We can see a great deal
of what we believe to be

genuine historical detail

in these long
hieroglyphic inscriptions,

so we get some sense
of the scale of this battle.

340 individuals were captured

and over 2,000 horses
were captured as well.

[Narrator] Not to mention
gold and silver,

900 chariots and 20,000 sheep.

[Chris] Thutmose III then
took control of the city

and subjected it to taxation.

So, you can see why perhaps
for some of the people

who were living there,
who stood to lose an awful lot,

this might have seemed
like an apocalypse.

[Narrator]
But why in all of Canaan

did the battle
take place at Megiddo?

At the city itself
in modern-day Israel,

Assaf Kleiman believes
the answer to this question

is to be found
at the highest point

of the 160-foot-tall hill
on which Megiddo sits.

This elevation and 360-degree
views allowed any ruler

to monitor goings-on
in the Jezreel Valley below.

[Assaf] Whoever sat here at
the site could control whatever

commercial activity that was
going through the valley.

Also from the military
perspective,

allowing them to see whatever
enemy approaching to the site

from almost any direction.

[Narrator] For the Egyptians,
the city of Megiddo

was a crucial fortress
that controlled

the so-called Way of Horus,

a major trade route connecting
Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Controlling this route
was vital

for maintaining Egypt's
power in the region.

♪ ♪

The Bible might not make
any mention of this battle,

but what is clear is that
Megiddo was a significant place

in the region that sat
between empires

with fame that spread
far beyond Canaan.

A place worth fighting for.

So just how desirable
was Megiddo?

And could something in its
violent history have inspired

the writers of Revelation?

[Narrator] Assaf is continuing
his investigation

into Megiddo's violent history.

400 years after the Canaanite
city was destroyed,

the city was resettled
by the Israelites.

Ruins here at the site
show they invested heavily

in structures
like walls and gates.

[Assaf] Right now,
we are looking at

the 8th century's
fortification of Megiddo.

At that time
Megiddo was fortified

by the kings of Israel.

They are a showcase of
the importance of the city.

[Narrator] In the 8th century,
Megiddo had become

one of the largest
and wealthiest cities

in the region.

It had a monumental building
for the Israelite rulers,

and housing for
an estimated 1,500 people,

with a sophisticated
water supply.

There were more than 15 stables
capable of holding 450 horses

and a large exercise yard

covering more than
35,000 square feet.

An enclosed tunnel-like gate
was the sole entrance,

the only break in a ring
of thick stone city walls

guarded by lookout towers.

The rulers built these
fortress-like walls

to a height and thickness
of roughly 10 feet.

[Assaf] This kind
of fortification

circled the entire mound,

channeling the enemies into a
single location: the city gate.

[Narrator] Such heavily
reinforced defenses

suggest Megiddo's rulers
were living in fear.

[Assaf] It intended to prevent
an attack by an enemy.

[Narrator] But who was
the threat on the horizon?

Clues could be found some
70 miles away from Megiddo

at another ancient Israelite
city named Lachish.

♪ ♪

As dawn breaks, archaeologist
Yosef Garfinkel and his team

make an early start
on excavations.

It's a steep climb to the top
of this site,

around 130 feet
above ground level.

Like Megiddo, this site has
been occupied dozens of times

over thousands of years.

[Yosef Garfinkel] Lachish was
a most important biblical city.

[Narrator] This year, Yosef is
targeting a layer of occupation

called level five.

A time when the city
was being fortified

by the Israelite kings.

[Yosef] I'm standing here
near the city wall,

this gives you an impressive
two-meter height

of the city wall, but originally
it was at least three,

four times higher,
eight or nine meter in height.

So, when enemy came here
and look at Lachish

and see the plastered
city wall and towers,

he would think twice whether
he will try to conquer the city.

[Narrator] And yet as they dig
into an 8th century layer

that Yosef calls level four,

the team unearths clues
that point to conflict.

We have evidence
for a battlefield,

and in it,
hundreds of arrowheads.

[Archaeologist] This is
a Scythian bronze arrowhead.

You see the area where
the stick was attached,

and you can see the wings, and
you see there the tip is bent,

which means hit may be
a rock or something.

[Narrator] How did these
arrowheads get here?

As they excavate the city walls
even further,

they find evidence
that it was a war

the residents of Lachish
did not win.

[Yosef] Total destruction.

These are the stone foundations
of the city wall

that has been destroyed.

It's very impressive.

[Narrator] In 701 BCE, ancient
texts say Lachish was conquered

by a people known
as the Assyrians.

[Yosef] The Assyrian was a very
well organized military empire,

they knew how to conquer cities,

they knew how to fight
in open area,

they have very
well-trained soldiers,

and this was because of
their well-organized army.

[Narrator] Just like Megiddo,

the city where
the Bible's writers

set the tale of Armageddon,

Lachish had also been fortified
by the Israelite kings.

Yet somehow these warriors
breached its defenses.

To investigate how they did it,
Yosef leaves the walled city

and descends the hill

where a strange heap
of loose rocks stands out.

[Yosef] We have here
a pile of stones.

So, they are rather small
or medium sized stones.

The big question is why
they have been deposited

in this location.

[Narrator] Yosef turns
to ancient depictions

called the Lachish Reliefs.

These stone carvings
were discovered

in the city of Nineveh
and depict Assyrian forces

attacking Lachish in 701 BCE.

[Yosef] We can see here archers
shooting hundreds of arrowheads

toward the city.

[Narrator] A closer look reveals
an intimidating piece

of weapons technology

called a siege engine.

[Yosef] It has wheels, and
it was pushed up the city wall,

inside there was a wooden beam,
very heavy.

And at the edge
was an iron spear,

and it will swing inside these
installation, back and forth,

back and forth, and boom, boom,
it hit the city wall

and destroyed
the fortifications of Lachish.

[Narrator] But there was
one big problem.

[Yosef] How to push
the heavy siege engine,

which was one tonne
or maybe more,

all the way up to the city.

The Assyrians were down there,

and they really want
to conquer the city,

so they had to build
a siege ramp.

[Narrator] To build
this siege ramp,

men worked in constant rotation
day and night

laying three million stones.

To protect the workers
from enemy missiles,

the Assyrians put up
large wicker shields

so they could build safely
all the way to the city walls.

Finally, the Assyrians could
push their mighty siege engines

up the 330-foot-long ramp
to the city wall.

Then they used a heavy
wooden battering ram

to break the defenses
and take the city.

[Yosef] This is an operation
that can be organized

only by an empire.

[Narrator] The Assyrians'
great success was built upon

advanced military technology

and also the way it dealt
with its captives.

[Yosef] One of the things
that we know

about the Assyrian Empire
that they used to deported

hundred thousands of people from
various area into Mesopotamia.

They used to take
prisoner of war

for building roads
or military activities

or cultural activities,

and so they will have
the manpower needed

for all these activities.

[Narrator] The evidence suggests
that Israelite Lachish

was emptied and destroyed.

Did Megiddo suffer
the same apocalyptic fate?

And could this shed light
on the mystery of Armageddon?

[Narrator] At Megiddo, Assaf
explores whether the Assyrians

conquered this city
as they cut a swathe

across the kingdom of Israel
in the 8th century BCE.

But he finds a puzzling
contradiction.

Unlike the brutal
conquest of Lachish,

there's no evidence
of destruction

dated to the same time period.

But there are clues that
something had changed.

[Assaf] In the second half
of the 8th century BCE

the layout of Megiddo
changed completely.

Instead of stables compounds,

this city included a new plan.

Domestic structures were built
on both sides of each street.

[Narrator] This architectural
transformation

could be evidence
of a regime change.

[Assaf]
This kind of architecture,

the inner courtyard
and the surrounding rooms,

is typical to the Assyrian
architectural tradition

of the first millennium BCE.

[Narrator] It seems
the Assyrians

took up residence here.

But what happened
to the Israelites

who lived here before them?

Did they suffer the same fate
as the people of Lachish?

Forced resettlements
by the Assyrians

were certainly well remembered
by the authors of the Bible

as they're recorded in
one of the Old Testament's

most ancient and
troubling mysteries.

The Book of Genesis tells the
story of Jacob and his 12 sons

who become the founding fathers
of the 12 tribes of Israel.

The later Book of Kings
talks of the Assyrians

deporting 10 of those tribes
who then disappear

from the historical record

and become known as
the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Their fate has troubled
Jewish scholars for millennia.

[Assaf]
The Lost Tribes of Israel

is the kind of designation
for those communities

that were deported to Assyria,

to then assimilated within
the society of the empire.

[Narrator] Historical texts and
the Old Testament Bible story

paint a picture
of cities emptied,

Israelite citizens deported,

and the kingdom destroyed.

It's an apocalyptic vision.

But is this the traumatic fate
that befell Megiddo?

And if so, did these
deportations inspire

the writers of Revelation to
create the story of Armageddon?

Assaf moves the investigation
15 miles away from Megiddo,

to the ancient city
of Hannathon.

[Assaf] So the drone going to be
around 40 minutes in the air?

[Operator] Yes.

[Narrator] Previously nothing
has been found here

after the city fell
to the Assyrians

in the 8th century BCE.

The established view is
that it was abandoned,

and the people relocated.

But the site is so large,
it's hard to tell

whether the lack of evidence
means there is none.

To find out, they're using
state of the art technology.

We use the technology
of the future for the...

For the study of the past.

Exactly.

[Operator] Yeah, it's very cool.

This is the LIDAR camera.

It needs to be
precisely attached.

[Narrator] LIDAR drones
use laser beams,

pulsing thousands of times
per second to measure distances

and create detailed 3D maps
of the landscape.

[Assaf] We will focus in
the area of the fortification,

hopefully we can see like the,
we can see the contour

of the fortification
in a much better way,

and then we will know how,
where exactly we want to dig.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Using a drone gives you
a different perspective.

[Narrator] LIDAR reveals
features that can't be seen

from the ground
and obscured objects

that satellite images
can't show.

[Assaf] Can I see that?
I don't see.

[Operator] Yeah.

[Assaf] Okay.
It's showing you the site

not from the human perspective.

So, you can see things which may
be hidden within vegetations,

all located in places
which are not accessible.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] What new light
can this technology shed

on the ancient mystery?

[Narrator] At the dig house
in Hannathon,

after a few solid hours
of data processing,

the 3D map reveals
a hidden world.

[Assaf] Wow!

Yeah, this is quite exciting.

It's showing us many feature

that we might not have been able
to see with the naked eye.

Specifically,
if we look in here,

right, you see here the line?

It looks exactly like some
kind of wall, man-made element.

[Assaf] I think that
we should dig here.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Assaf and his team
get down to the dirty work

and unearth treasures
hidden for centuries.

Right on top!

[laughs]

[Assaf] Wow!

This is fantastic, this is
7th century BC Phoenician jar.

And here we can see also
like a nice specimen

of a store jar in a local style.

Very interesting.

[Narrator] Ceramics tell
archaeologists a lot

about the people who lived in
or passed through a site.

[Assaf] Yeah, it's
an interesting piece,

you think you know
these vessels,

because we've found
hundreds of them by now.

And every time, like, there is
a new piece that surprising you.

[Narrator] In this case,
it's a surprise

to find any ceramics at all,

as these finds date to shortly
after the Assyrian conquest,

a time when Hannathon
was supposedly deserted.

[Assaf] The conventional wisdom
was that the whole area

was abandoned
after the destruction

of the kingdom of Israel
for several centuries.

[Narrator] These new discoveries
turn the established theory

on its head.

[Assaf] We were quite surprised
when we came to Hannathon,

and we found so many sherds
from this period.

We weren't ready for the high
quantities of evidence

for human activity
in this period.

[Narrator] Clearly some people
remained, but who were they?

[Assaf] The Assyrian policy was
to take whoever can be helpful

for the empire.

This is mean usually
the elite group,

the upper stratum of society.

Most of the people
that stayed here

after the Assyrian deportations
were the common people.

[Narrator] This new discovery
leads Assaf to a conclusion

about the 10 missing
tribes of Israel.

[Assaf] The story
of the Lost Tribe,

it sparked the imagination of
so many people for generations.

But it seems that most of the
Lost Tribes actually remained

in place, they never left
the land of Israel.

They stayed here
and rebuilt their life,

and it's such a beautiful place,
it was not abandoned after all.

[Narrator] This discovery
also sheds light

on the mystery of Megiddo.

Assaf hasn't yet found
any evidence of destruction

there either, which could
suggest there was no battle.

[Assaf] From the archaeological
findings, we know that the city

was probably abandoned
on the eve of the attack.

Its defenders were not
in the city during the attack,

and the Assyrians probably
didn't have any problem

entering the city
and conquering it.

[Narrator] Many local Israelites
who fled eventually returned,

assimilating into
the new Assyrian culture.

Hardly the violent,
world-ending scene

depicted in Revelation.

[Assaf] I don't think we can
refer to the collapse

of the kingdom of Israel
as an apocalyptic event.

I do think it was
a very important event,

but on the other hand,
life continued,

people rebuilt their life.

[Narrator] So how did a city
that survived

the Assyrian conquest
end up as the setting

for the battle
at the end of times?

During his most recent
excavation at Megiddo,

Assaf and his team
set out to explore

the long-term consequences
of this invasion for the city.

[Assaf] Our only hope was
to find in the excavations

remains of the Assyrian city,

but the excavation provides us
also with a big surprise.

[Narrator] What they discovered
could finally lead

to a breakthrough
in the quest to understand

the mystery of Armageddon.

[Narrator] At Megiddo, Assaf
examines some puzzling finds

from his most
recent excavation.

We found high quantities
of very strange sherds

with very crude appearance
and straw tempered.

This is the integration of straw

into the production
of these kind of vessels.

We've never seen these
kind of vessels before.

[Narrator] Nearly 100 pieces
of crude pottery were pulled

from the ground, much of it
dating to the 7th century BCE.

[Assaf] They were undecorated
and had a very bulky appearance,

serving vessels, cooking
vessels, storage vessels.

[Narrator] Microscopic analysis
revealed the vessels

were neither Israelite
nor Assyrian.

[Assaf] All of them
were produced in Egypt

and were brought all the way
here to Megiddo.

[Narrator] Why were such huge
quantities of pottery

imported from Egypt
in the late 7th century BCE

and used here at Megiddo?

♪ ♪

At Tel Aviv University,

archaeologist
Israel Finkelstein led the dig

where the Egyptian pottery
sherds were unearthed.

He believes they are connected
to one very specific date.

[Israel Finkelstein] When people
come to visit me at Megiddo

in my excavations, I always tell
them the most important moment

in the history of Megiddo
is that moment in 609 BC.

[Narrator] Around 100 years
after the conquest of Megiddo,

the Assyrian Empire
began to collapse.

It felt like an era
of opportunity

for the Jewish people
who were at the time

led by a ruler called Josiah.

He claimed to be the descendent
of the legendary King David

and wanted to take back lands
lost to the invaders.

[Israel] In the Biblical text,
he's the ultimate good king,

the most righteous king
in the lineage of David.

[Narrator] But another powerful
force saw an opportunity

to control the region:
the Egyptians.

In 609 BCE,
Josiah faced a new threat

as Egyptian forces under
a pharaoh named Necho II

attempted to cross his lands.

In a key moment of the Bible,

Josiah decided to
confront them at Megiddo,

where it's said
an Egyptian arrow

mortally wounded
the legendary king.

Many archaeologists believe the
death of Josiah really happened

and could explain the Egyptian
pottery sherds at Megiddo.

They're low grade
and in vast quantities,

because they were supplying the
Egyptian army stationed there.

So, how might Josiah's death
be connected

to the idea of Armageddon?

Israel believes answers lie
in the prophecy of a messiah

in the Book of Revelation.

[Israel] The forces of God
are going to prevail,

and then a redeemer
from the lineage of David

will come after the battle
to save us all.

[Narrator] Josiah was
the descendant

of Israel's
greatest king, David.

And his descendant was,
according to the Bible, Jesus.

[Israel] It is connected to
the story of Josiah at Megiddo,

because Josiah is described

as the most righteous
Davidite that lived.

So, the most righteous king
of the Davidic line

died at Megiddo,
and the next Davidic redeemer

will come back after
the battle at Megiddo.

[Narrator] The great redeemer
of the prophecy of Revelation

is the Messiah of the
New Testament, Jesus Christ,

who would establish
God's kingdom on Earth

with his victory at Megiddo.

This season's pioneering
excavations have unearthed

new discoveries...

[beeping]

...revealing the history
of cities riven by conflict...

[Assaf] This is something
exceptional,

this is the oldest siege ramp
ever found in archaeology.

[Narrator]
...and uncovering evidence

of terrifying devastation.

[Igor] This is ash, wood that
was burnt in high temperature,

clear evidence,
destruction of Hazor,

the burning of the city by fire.

[Narrator] Inspired by this
seemingly endless warfare

and perhaps the death
of a famous king at Megiddo,

the writers of Revelation
created a prophecy,

looking forward to a time
when it is said

wrongs will be righted,

and when a descendant of David
and Josiah will come again

to restore the land
to his people on Earth.

[Assaf] It's a profound wish
for a more optimistic future

in which there are perhaps
no war anymore,

no more evil, just peace.