I became your enemy because I tell you the truth
And he [Nebuchadnezzar] burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. – 2 Kings 25:9 (ESV)
Magnetic Fields Frozen by Fire
Scientists from Hebrew University (HU) and Tel Aviv University (TAU) are employing “breakthrough” dating technology using the Earth’s magnetic field to verify military campaigns against the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The effort involved 20 researchers from different countries and disciplines who claimed to have accurately dated 21 destruction layers at 17 archaeological sites throughout Israel. Using this new scientific dating tool, researchers now have more evidence that ancient Egyptians, Arameans, Assyrians and Babylonians did wage the battles that are described in the Old Testament during the 10th to 6th centuries BC.
When magnetic materials are burned or heated they record the precise direction and/or intensity of the Earth’s geomagnetic field at the time of the fire (thermoremanent magnetization). Researchers say they have found this data to be a reliable scientific tool for archeological dating because it makes it possible to reconstruct the magnetic field for particular times in history. Looking at sites where the dates of historical events was already firmly established through various collaborating sources, scientists use the preserved magnetic fields to piece together the timing of other destroyed areas where the dating was more questionable.
“Based on the similarity or difference in intensity and direction of the magnetic field, we can either corroborate or disprove hypotheses claiming that specific sites were burned during the same military campaign. Moreover, we have constructed a variation curve of field intensity over time which can serve as a scientific dating tool, similar to the radiocarbon dating method,” says lead author Yoav Vaknin, a PhD student at TAU, in a media release.
The Study, “Reconstructing Biblical Military Campaigns Using Geomagnetic Field Data” was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is based on the doctoral thesis of Yoav Vaknin, who was supervised by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipschits of TAU’s Institute of Archaeology and Prof. Ron Shaar of HU’s Institute of Earth Sciences.
Earth’s Mysterious Magnetic Field
Albert Einstein described fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field as one of the five great mysteries of physics. The field surrounds the earth and plays a crucial, yet unexplained, role in our planet’s life.
Earth’s ever-changing magnetic field comes from the motion of liquid iron in the outer core of the planet. The field protects the earth from dangerous radiation coming from outer space and is used as a navigation tool by birds, marine mammals and humans. It is what enables technology to function, from satellites to phone lines.
“The geomagnetic field is generated by earth’s outer core, at a depth of 2,900 km, by currents of liquid iron. Due to the chaotic motion of this iron, the magnetic field changes over time. Until recently scientists believed that it remained quite stable for decades, but archaeomagnetic research has contradicted this assumption by revealing some extreme and unpredictable changes in antiquity,” said Prof. Ron Shaar who led the geophysical aspects of the study.
“Earth’s magnetic field is critical to our existence. Most people don’t realize that without it there could be no life on earth,” Shaar continued.
Despite the magnetic field’s importance, we don’t know much about it: How the earth’s core produces it, how and why it fluctuates, and how the fluctuations impact earth’s atmosphere?
In an effort to answer these questions and explain the magnetic field’s perplexing behavior, geophysicists try to reconstruct its activities during periods before direct measurements began.
Archaeological findings can be used for this purpose because items such as pottery sherds, bricks, roof tiles and furnaces record the magnetic field at the time when they are burned. If coming from events with already established dates, these magnetic signatures can then be used as an anchor for dating other sites.
Magnetic Field During Jerusalem’s Destruction
During an archaeological excavation conducted at the City of David National Park, previously known as the Givati parking lot, excavators found a grand public structure with a large section of high-quality plaster floor that had collapsed from the top story.
Yoav Vaknin sampled fragments of flooring scattered around the site and measured the magnetic field recorded in them. These tests were performed at the Paleomagnetic Laboratory of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University.
“We dated the destruction of the structure to 586 BCE, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, based on smashed pottery vessels typical of the end of the First Temple period, found on the floor,” explained the directors of the excavation, Dr. Yiftah Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University (TAU).
“Apart from the broken utensils, we found signs of burning and large quantities of ashes. The findings are reminiscent of the 2nd Book of Kings chapter 25 verse 9: ‘And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man’s house burnt he with fire.’”
“The purpose of this study was twofold,” said Vaknin. “One goal was to rediscover the direction and magnitude of the magnetic field on the day of Jerusalem’s destruction. The other was to understand what the magnetic data recorded in the floor fragments can tell us about the destruction itself. Even without measuring the magnetic field we could assume that this grand building was destroyed in the event of the destruction of the First Temple, but the magnetic measurements proved that the building had been burned down, at a temperature higher than 932°F, probably intentionally, and that the floor, supported by massive wooden beams, had collapsed during the fire.”
“We drew this conclusion from the fact that most of the floor’s fragments, cooling down after the collapse, recorded the same magnetic direction – regardless of their arbitrary position after falling from above. We were able to link the destruction of Jerusalem with the recording of earth’s magnetic field, thereby contributing to both geophysical and archaeological research,” added Vaknin.
“This is truly extraordinary. The archaeomagnetic method also has implications for future research. If we find a similar destruction layer with similar pottery at another site, we will be able to compare the magnetic fields recorded at the two different sites, enabling us to determine whether the other site was also destroyed by the Babylonians.”
“Measuring magnetic data from a floor burned thousands of years ago is no trivial matter, ” explained Shaar. “We had to characterize the magnetic particles, understand how the magnetic data was coded in the material, and develop measuring techniques enabling us to read this data.”
“Nature hasn’t made life easy for us,” continued Shaar. “Thus a significant part of the analytical work we do at the paleomagnetic lab is investigating the magnetic properties of the archaeological materials. Fortunately, in this particular study, Yoav was able to decipher nature’s magnetic code and give us important information from several angles: historic, archeological, and geomagnetic.”
“In order to reveal the magnetic field we need sources of information from well-anchored points in history,” concluded Vaknin. “We very rarely have a historical event that occurred thousands of years ago that we can date so accurately – down to the year, month and even day, like the destruction of Jerusalem.”
“It’s important to understand that despite dispute about the overall historical validity of the Old Testament, the description of the events that occurred in the Kingdom of Judea during its last 100 years was written almost in real time – and the Biblical text is generally considered reliable for this period. The destruction of the First Temple is corroborated by numerous archaeological findings from the Land of Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular, such as royal storage jars with rosette stamped handles and seals and seal impressions with names mentioned in the Biblical text.”
“The new dating tool is unique because it is based on geomagnetic data from sites, whose exact destruction dates are known from historical sources,” added Prof. Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University. “By combining precise historical information with advanced, comprehensive archaeological research, we were able to base the magnetic method on reliably anchored chronology.”
Babylonians Had Help Destroying Jerusalem
The destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians on the 9th of Av, 586 BC is thought to be a precise chronological anchor for archaeomagnetic dating, accurate down to the specific day. Using that date, along with the new magnetic field dating method, experts have found evidence that the Babylonians had assistance with Jerusalem’s destruction.
“The last days of the Kingdom of Judah are widely debated,” explained Prof. Erez Ben Yosef. “Some researchers, relying on archaeological evidence, argue that Judah was not completely destroyed by the Babylonians. While Jerusalem and frontier cities in the Judean foothills ceased to exist, other towns in the Negev, the southern Judean mountains and the southern Judean foothills remained almost unaffected.”
“Now, the magnetic results support this hypothesis, indicating that the Babylonians were not solely responsible for Judah’s ultimate demise,” Yosef continued. “Several decades after they had destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple, sites in the Negev, which had survived the Babylonian campaign, were destroyed – probably by the Edomites who took advantage of the fall of Jerusalem. This betrayal and participation in the destruction of the surviving cities may explain why the Hebrew Bible expresses so much hatred for the Edomites – for example, in the prophecy of Obadiah.”
The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord GOD concerning Edom… Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. – Obadiah 1:1,10 (ESV)
Putting the New Dating Method into Practice
This new dating method has been helpful for figuring out when the Philistine city of Gath, known today as Tel Tzafit in the Judean foothills, was destroyed. There have been questions as to who destroyed it and other cities nearby.
According to historical sources, Hazael, the King of Aram-Damascus, led at least one military campaign to the Southern Levant. This event left an extensive destruction layer. The consensus among scholars is that it should be dated around 830 BC, according to historical and archeological data, including radiocarbon dating.
The Bible tells us in 2 Kings 12:17 that Hazel and his army destroyed Gath of the Philistines. The difficult part came in determining if Hazael was also responsible for the ruin of the other sites of Tel Rehov, Tel Zayit and Horvat Tevet.
Using the new dating tool, researchers were able to match the magnetic fields recorded at all four sites at the time of destruction, making a very strong case for their destruction during the same campaign.
Interestingly, a destruction layer at Tel Beth-Shean recorded a totally different magnetic field, refuting the prevailing hypothesis that it too was destroyed by Hazael. Instead, the magnetic results from Beth-Shean indicate that it, along with two other cities in northern Israel, were destroyed at the same time, perhaps 70-100 years earlier, which may link it with the military movements of the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq. Shoshenq’s campaign is described in an inscription on a wall of the Temple of Amun in Karnak, Egypt where it references Beth-Shean as one of his war conquests. This campaign has been linked with the Old Testament’s Pharaoh Shishak who sacked the Temple in Jerusalem, and this proposed biblical connection is one of the pillars upon which the standard dating of Egypt’s Kingdom Period rests.
Another well dated event happened in 701 BC when Sennacherib King of Assyria conquered Judah. This conflict is described in Assyrian sources, in the famous Lachish relief and in the Bible.
“In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign,” 2 Kings 18:13 tells us, “Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.”
“We managed to reconstruct the magnetic field of the earth which is recorded in burnt mud bricks,” Vaknin explained, referring to Lachish. “When these mud bricks were burnt they recorded the magnetic field of the earth at the time. This helped us and was used as an anchor for dating other sites. We reconstructed the magnetic field also in other sites and we could use the magnetic signal to date sites that aren’t well dated according to the data from this site which is very well dated to 701 BCE.”
Conclusion
“Our location here in Israel is uniquely conducive to archaeomagnetic research due to an abundance of well-dated archaeological findings. Over the past decade, we have reconstructed magnetic fields recorded by hundreds of archaeological items,” said Shaar. “By combining this dataset with the data from Yoav Vaknin’s investigation of historical destruction layers, we were able to form a continuous variation curve showing rapid, sharp changes in the geomagnetic field. This is wonderful news, both for archaeologists who can now use geomagnetic data to determine the age of ancient materials and for geophysicists studying the Earth’s core.”
Keep Thinking!
Michael Loyman