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8 Lost Cities of the Holy Land and What They Look Like Today · truthunedited

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Before any temple was built or any empire was named,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the Holy Land was already accumulating ruins. Every hill hides
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a buried story, Every valley holds the echoes of peoples
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: who believe they were eternal. This is not just a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sacred map. It is a vast field of debris from
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: the ancient world. Civilizations were born here, prospered, warred, and
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  Speaker 1: disappeared Where we now see silence and dust. Archaeologists find
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: entire cities buried by time. In this documentary, we will
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: unearth eight of these lost cities. We will rebuild their
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: days of glory, reveal the forces that destroyed them, and
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  Speaker 1: show what remains of them in the present. Some survived
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in fragments, others disappeared almost completely. And there are those
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: whose stories are so violent they seem more like legends
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: until the earth proves otherwise. Around fourteen hundred BC, one
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of these cities was not just inhabited, it was practically impregnable.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Built on a tell, an artificial mound formed by successive
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: cycles of destruction and reconstruction, it covered about three hectares
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: at the top of a strategic hill. Even before the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Biblical period, that same soil had been raised and raised
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: about twenty times. Beneath the streets associated with the time
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of Joshua, archaeologists discovered layers that record more than eleven
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: thousand years of human occupation. There stands a stone tower
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: dating back to around eight thousand, five hundred BC, considered
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: one of the oldest monumental structures ever identified by archaeology.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Jericho did not learn to survive by chance. War was
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: part of its history. Within its walls, the city functioned
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: like a well oiled machine. Mud brick houses, paved streets,
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  Speaker 1: deep cisterns, granaries full of grain. The spring of Elisha,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: which still exists, provided a constant supply of fresh water.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Traders crossed its gates, bringing spices from the east, textiles
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  Speaker 1: from the north, and metals from the south. The city
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  Speaker 1: controlled access to the Jordan Valley. Anyone who wanted to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: ascend to the mountains of Canaan had to pass through
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Jericho and pay the price. But the true symbol of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: its power was its defenses. Jericho did not rely on
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a single wall, but on a double system, an outer
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  Speaker 1: stone wall about three point five meters high and behind
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it another even taller one. Between them, corridors allowed soldiers
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  Speaker 1: to move. The base was so thick that houses were
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: built inside the defensive structure itself. Rahab, the woman who
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: helped the Israelite spies, lived in one of those houses
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: with a window facing out of the city. Today, Tereles
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Sultan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As you walk
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: through it, you see layers of eleven thousand years of
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  Speaker 1: civilization stacked on top of each other. The ancient stone
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: tower still looms, the remains of the walls still defy time,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and a thought arises almost inevitably. This city resisted for
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: millennia until it fell with a cry. Jericho fell supernaturally,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: but the next city did not fall with a sound.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It was burned from the sky, and to this day
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the earth holds melted ceramics scattered across the ground. For decades,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: archaeologists and historians traversed deserts, plains, and valleys in search
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: of Sodom and Gomorrah. For many modern scholars, these cities
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: were nothing more than moral symbols, ancient legends created to
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: teach lessons through fear. However, in twenty thirteen, a discovery
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: changed the tone of that debate. Near the Dead Sea,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: an international team identified an archaeological site that would raise
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable questions, Tall el Hammam. As the excavations advanced, it
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: became clear that there were marks of a destruction that
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: did not fit common wars or gradual collapses. The revealed
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: city was anything but insignificant. Located on a fertile plane,
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  Speaker 1: supplied with abundant water, and positioned on a strategic trade route,
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  Speaker 1: tall el Hammam prospered for centuries. It is estimated that
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: between eight and ten thousand people lived there, a true
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: metropolis for the Bronze Age. Thick walls protected the city.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Palaces and temples indicated political organization, economic power, and regional influence. Sodom,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it seems, was not a village forgotten by time. It
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was a dominant urban centre. But according to the Biblical text,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Sodom's problem was never poverty or scarcity. It was excess,
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  Speaker 1: a society shaped by pride, arrogance, and a corruption so
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  Speaker 1: deep that, according to Genesis, it crossed any tolerable limit.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: The account states that faced with this, God decided to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: intervene directly in human history. Then came the judgment fire
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  Speaker 1: and sulfur fell from the sky. The destruction was swift, total,
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  Speaker 1: and irreversible. In a single day, the city ceased to exist.
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  Speaker 1: Lot and his family fled in a hurry, and when
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Lot's wife looked back, disobeying the order, she became a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: pillar of salt. It seems like a movie scene, but
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the earth, unlike myths, holds marks that do not fade
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  Speaker 1: with time. At Tall Elhamam, archaeologists found evidence of an
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: explosion that occurred about three thousand, seven hundred years ago,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: temperatures exceeding two thousand degrees celsius, ceramics vitrified turned into
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: glass clay bricks that literally exploded under extreme heat, and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: something even more disturbing. Thick layers of salt spread across
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  Speaker 1: the soil in sufficient quantity to make it sterile. For
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: six to seven centuries, nothing grew there. The place died
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: along with the city. The hypotheses vary meteorite impact, an
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: air burst similar to Tunguska, a violent release of gases.
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  Speaker 1: The scientific debate continues, but the fact remains. Something devastated
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that city, brutally, leaving permanent physical scars right in the
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  Speaker 1: region where the Bible locates Sodom. Today, tal el Hammam
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: is an open archaeological site, the layers of destruction remain exposed.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: The melted ceramic is still there, frozen in time, a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: silent witness to a day when the sky seemed to
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  Speaker 1: catch fire. Sodom was burned from the sky, but the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: next city would be burned from the ground, and Joshua
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: made sure it was the only one completely destroyed among
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: all the cities of Canaan. Why because it was the capital,
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  Speaker 1: because it concentrated power, because it had about forty thousand inhabitants.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Hazer was not a common city. It was a metropolis
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the ancient world. For comparison, Jerusalem in the days of
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  Speaker 1: David centuries later had fewer people than that. At its peak,
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  Speaker 1: Haeser covered about eighty hectares in the upper city and
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  Speaker 1: another seventy in the lower city. Massive stone walls surrounded
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  Speaker 1: the entire complex. Within them palaces with columns, temples dedicated
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  Speaker 1: to bal and astarte, bronze workshops, granaries full of grain,
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  Speaker 1: paved streets, public fountains distributing water. Traders from Syria, Egypt
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  Speaker 1: and Cyprus negotiated in the central square. Hazer controlled the
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  Speaker 1: trade routes of the north. Anyone who wanted to head
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  Speaker 1: towards Mesopotamia had to pass through there and pay tolls.
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  Speaker 1: But Hazar was not just wealth, it was military command.
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  Speaker 1: Its king led a confederation of city states. When Joshua
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  Speaker 1: entered Canaan, it was the king of Hazar who organized
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  Speaker 1: the resistance. He gathered the other kings, concentrated the armies,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and camped by the waters of Merom. It was the
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  Speaker 1: largest military force the Israelites had faced up to that point. Chariots, cavalry,
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  Speaker 1: heavy infantry. Joshua one. But here is the crucial detail.
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  Speaker 1: Of all the conquered cities, only Hazer was completely burned.
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  Speaker 1: The others were preserved for occupation. Haeser had to become
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: an example. Between nineteen fifty five and nineteen fifty eight,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Yigael Yadin excavated the site. Later, new excavations in the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties revealed twenty one layers of human occupation, but
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: one layer stands out. Thick ashes, collapsed structures, all dated
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  Speaker 1: by carbon fourteen to around twelve hundred BC, exactly the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: period attributed to Joshua. In twenty twelve, Amnon Bentor's team
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  Speaker 1: found jars full of carbonized wheat. The grain was stored
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  Speaker 1: ready for use. The city fell quickly. There was no evacuation.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: It was devastating. Later excavations also revealed a monumental water system,
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  Speaker 1: a tunnel that descends forty meters to the water table,
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  Speaker 1: expanded centuries later by King Ahab, as well as a
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  Speaker 1: basalt staircase four point five meters wide that led to
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the royal Palace. To day, Hazor is a UNESCO World
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  Speaker 1: Heritage Site since two thousand five, along with Megido and Beersheba.
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  Speaker 1: It is fourteen kilometers north of the Sea of Galilee.
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  Speaker 1: You walk through it and see walls, palace foundations, the
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  Speaker 1: monumental staircase. The jars with burnt wheat are in the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Israel Museum in Jerusalem, but no one lives there. The
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: greatest city of Canaan turned to dust. Joshua burned the
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  Speaker 1: capital of Canaan. But there was a city that Jesus cursed.
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  Speaker 1: And it was not just any city. It was the
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  Speaker 1: place where he lived, where he performed more miracles than
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  Speaker 1: any where else on the map. And what if the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: place where you performed the most miracles was at the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: same time the place you decided to curse. This question
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  Speaker 1: echoes when we look at Capernium, a living, prosperous, bustling city,
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  Speaker 1: full of apparent faith but empty of repentance. Located on
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  Speaker 1: the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Capernium occupied
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  Speaker 1: a strategic position. The Via Maaris, the great trade route
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  Speaker 1: that linked Egypt to Syria, passed right in front of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: its gates. Caravans stopped there to rest, trade and resupply.
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  Speaker 1: There was a Roman customs post where Matthew collected taxes.
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  Speaker 1: Boats left every morning and returned with nets full of fish.
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  Speaker 1: The market buzzed with bread, olive, oil, pottery, and textiles.
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  Speaker 1: With about fifteen thousand inhabitants, it was a medium sized city,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: but economically comfortable. At the center of it all was
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  Speaker 1: the synagogue, built of black basalt with sturdy pillars supporting
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  Speaker 1: the roof. It was the spiritual heart of the city.
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  Speaker 1: Every Sabbath, men gathered to read the Torah, debate the law,
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  Speaker 1: and pray. And it was right there that Jesus began
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  Speaker 1: to teach the Gospel of Matthew calls Capernaum his own city.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't just pass through, he lived there. Peter, James, John,
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  Speaker 1: and Andrew had houses in Capernaum after his travels, Jesus
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  Speaker 1: returned there, and it was there that more miracles happened
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  Speaker 1: than anywhere else. The centurion servant was healed from a distance,
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  Speaker 1: Peter's mother in law was freed from fever. A paralytic
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  Speaker 1: was lowered through the roof because the house was too full,
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  Speaker 1: and Jesus healed him in front of everyone. Demons were expelled,
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  Speaker 1: storms were calmed. The whole city saw, but seeing did
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  Speaker 1: not mean believing. The miracles became a spectacle. People watched, listened,
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  Speaker 1: but did not repent. Then Jesus did something unprecedented. He
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  Speaker 1: cursed the city where he lived. In Mathia Quo eleven.
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  Speaker 1: He declared that Copernium would go down to Hell, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: that if Sodom had seen what Capernium saw, it would
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  Speaker 1: still exist. The curse was fulfilled slowly. After the sixth century,
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  Speaker 1: Capernaum was gradually abandoned. In eighteen ninety four, the Franciscans
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  Speaker 1: acquired the land and began excavations. Between nineteen sixty eight
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  Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty five, Virgilio Corbo and Stanislaul Freda identified
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  Speaker 1: Peter's house beneath a fifth century Byzanti octagonal church. The
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: white limestone synagogue visible today, was built on the foundations
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  Speaker 1: of the first century Basalt Synagogue, exactly where Jesus taught.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Coins and mortar confirmed the dates. Today, Capernaum is administered
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  Speaker 1: by the Custodians of the Holy Land, Silent ruins of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: a city that saw the Son of God and rejected him.
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  Speaker 1: Capernium rejected Jesus, but the next city was not cursed
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  Speaker 1: by him. It was prophesied about six huns hundred years
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: earlier to be abandoned, and today literally no one lives there.
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  Speaker 1: At its peak, Ashkelon had about thirteen thousand inhabitants. Built
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  Speaker 1: on the seashore. It had a natural protected harbour. Ships
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  Speaker 1: from Cyprus, Greece and Egypt docked there daily within giant
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  Speaker 1: walls up to fifteen metres high and fifty meters wide.
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  Speaker 1: At the base, life pulsed markets sold Tyrian purple, Athenian marble,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Egyptian grain. Temples dedicated to Dagon and bal Zebab dominated
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  Speaker 1: the centre. Palaces with gardens occupied the noble part of
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  Speaker 1: the city. The Philistines were never primitive or barbaric peoples,
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  Speaker 1: as is often imagined. They possessed sophisticated culture, planned architecture,
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  Speaker 1: advanced metallurgy, and a vibrant urban life. Ashkiln was proof
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  Speaker 1: of this. But in the eyes of Israel's prophets, something
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: was deeply wrong there. The problem was not military nor economic,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: it was spiritual. Ashkelon represented everything Israel should not be.
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  Speaker 1: Idols dominated its temples, rituals considered abominable were part of
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: its religious life. For this reason, generation after generation, the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: prophets announced judgment. Amos, Zephaniah, Jeremiah all spoke against Ashgalon,
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  Speaker 1: but it was Zechariah who made the most direct declaration,
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  Speaker 1: Ashkelon will be abandoned. In six hundred four BC, nebukud Nezer,
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  Speaker 1: the second king of Babylon, invaded the region. Ashkelon tried
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  Speaker 1: to resist. It closed its gates, reinforced its walls, stocked food.
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  Speaker 1: It was not enough. The Babylonian army broke through the defenses,
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  Speaker 1: killed the king, and deported the population. The city fell,
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  Speaker 1: and here is the impressive detail. Ashkelon was even rebuilt afterward.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Greeks occupied it, Romans occupied it, Byzantines occupied it, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it never returned to what it was. Over time, it
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: was gradually abandoned. In eleven ninety one, Richard the Lion
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Heart destroyed what remained to prevent the port from being
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: used by Muslim forces. After that, no one rebuilt it. Today,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Ashkalon is a national park. Archaeologists found there the first
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Philistine cemetery ever discovered, with one hundred forty five skeletons, statuettes,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: painted ceramics, gold jewelry, vestiges of a rich culture, but
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: there are no residents. The prophecy was fulfilled and the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: next city was not abandoned. Slowly, it faced the worst
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: military siege of antiquity, and the enemies themselves recorded everything
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: in stone. The Assyrians built a ramp of about three
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: million stones to destroy this city, and they immortalized the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: feet in reliefs twenty seven meters long. Lakish was the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: second most important city of Judah, second only to Jerusalem.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Built on a strategic hill, it controlled the route between
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the coastal plain and the mountains of Judea. Anyone who
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to attack Jerusalem from the west had to pass
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: through Lachish. That is why King Rehoboam heavily fortified the place.
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  Speaker 1: Double walls surrounded the city, the outer one six metres thick,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: the inner one. Four watch towers covered all angles. A
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: monumental gate with six chambers controlled the entrance inside. Limestone houses, workshops, storerooms,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and cisterns supplied a population of about six thousand people.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: But in seven hundred one BC, Senacarib, king of Assyria,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: invaded Judah. He had already conquered forty six cities and
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: deported more than two hundred thousand people. Now he wanted Lakish,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and he wanted the world to know. The siege was
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: meticulous and brutal. The ramp is still there, a colossal
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: structure made of millions of stones, each carried by hand
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: by Assyrian soldiers. As the ramp rose, archers shot arrows
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to keep the defenders at bay. Siege towers advanced battering
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: rams struck the walls inside the city chaos. Excavations revealed
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: layers of ash up to six meters thick, arrowheads embedded
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in the walls, skeletons of people killed while trying to flee,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a mass grave with more than one thousand, five hundred
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: bodies thrown in without any ceremony. Lachish fell, and Senecarib
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: was so proud that he had the victory recorded in
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: monumental reliefs. Today these scenes are in the British Museum.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Soldiers advancing, prisoners impaled, families being deported. It is the
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: most detailed visual account of an ancient siege that we possess.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Lakish was rebuilt afterward, but it never regained its importance.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Today it is just a tell an archaeological mound. You
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: climb up there, see the preserved ramp, the broken walls,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and imagine the terror. Lakish suffered the worst military siege,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: but the next capital faced something even more devastating famine,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a famine so extreme that it destroyed human sanity, a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: famine that led to the unthinkable, a mother cooking her
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: own son. And this happened in Samaria, the capital of
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Samaria was not an ordinary city.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: It was rich, extremely rich. Around eight hundred eighty b c.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: King Omri chose a strategic hill and decided to build
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the capital from scratch. It was not about renovating an
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: ancient city, but about a planned urban project. The hill
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: rose about ninety meters above the valley, offering a complete
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: view of the surrounding region. Double walls of white limestone
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: reflected the sun from a distance, a visible symbol of
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: power and security. The palace of ahab Omri's son was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the height of lane luxury. Its walls were decorated with
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: carved ivory panels, not paint, not imitation, but real ivory
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: imported from Africa. Entire panels covered the rooms, which is
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: why the Bible calls the building the ivory house in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: First Kings twenty two. Inside the city, life flowed in abundance.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Rock hewn cisterns insured water even during long droughts. Warehouses
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: accumulated wine, olive, oil, and grain. The market sold Tyrian purple,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Arabian spices, Egyptian jewelry. It is estimated that Samaria housed
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: about thirty thousand inhabitants. It was not just the political capital,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: It was the ultimate symbol of prosperity for the Northern kingdom.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: But in seven hundred twenty five BC, King Hoshea made
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a fatal mistake. He stopped paying tribute to Assyria. Charmanza
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Fife responded, as the Assyrians always did with cruel patients.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The army besieged Samaria and did not attack the walls.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: It simply cut off access. Nothing went in nothing went out,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and they waited. The first year consumed the supplies. In
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the second, the animals were sacrificed. In the third, nothing
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: was left. It was then that the horror recorded in
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Two Kings, chapter six occurred. Two women made an unthinkable agreement.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: They cooked one woman's son. The next day, when it
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: was the other's turn to fulfill the pact, she hid
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the child. In seven hundred twenty two BC, the walls
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: finally fell. Sagon the second, who had taken the Assyrian throne,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: entered the city and deported twenty seven thousand, two hundred
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: ninety people. Modern excavations confirmed that the Ivory palace described
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: in the Bible was exactly on that hill. Original fragments
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of the panels were found and are now preserved in
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: museums in Jerusalem. The hill, today called Sebastia, is no
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: longer inhabited. It has become a major archaeological site where
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: ruins of the palace, walls and ancient temples can still
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: be seen. Samaria died of famine, but the next city
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: is different. It did not die once, It died twenty
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: six times, and according to prophecy, it will die again
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: in the final battle of history. There is a place
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in the Holy Land where twenty six battles have already
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: taken place. Megido or Armageddon in Greek, Megido occupies a
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: position that any general would dream of controlling. The tell,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: an archaeological mound about twenty meters high, dominates the Jezreel Valley.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: From the top, one can see kilometers of plain in
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: all directions. The Via Maris, the most important commercial road
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of the ancient world, passed right there. Egyptian armies marching
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: toward Mesopotamia had to cross Megido. Mesopotamian army is descending
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: toward Egypt also did. There was no detour. Whoever controlled
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Megiddo controlled the military and commercial traffic of the entire region.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: That is why twenty six different civilizations occupied the same place.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Canaanites built, Egyptians, destroyed and rebuilt Israelites, conquered Philistines, attacked, Assyrians, raised, Persians, occupied,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Greeks took Romans dominated. Each empire built its city upon
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the ruins of the previous one, layer upon layer, century
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: after century, forming an artificial mound literally made of stacked
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: dead cities. Solomon transformed Mgido into one of the greatest
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: fortresses of his kingdom. Understanding the strategic value of that point,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: he re enforced the city with thick walls, built extensive
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: stables capable of housing about four hundred fifty horses, and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: had an impressive water system constructed carved into the rock
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: that descended approximately forty meters to the water table. Thus,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: even under siege, Megiddo could survive. The city's main gate
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: had six chambers identical to those found in Hazor and Gazer,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the same architect, the same design, the same defensive pattern.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Megiddo was not an isolated outpost, but part of a
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: national defense system, and precisely for that reason it was
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: always at the center of conflicts. In six hundred nine BC,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh Neko the Second of Egypt was marching north to
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: support Assyria against the advance of Babylon. His objective was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: not Judah, just to pass through the region. King Josiah, however,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: decided to block the passage at Mgido. It was a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: costly mistake. Neko tried to avoid confrontation, but Josiah insisted
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the battle was brief and tragic. An arrow struck the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: King of Judah, who died on his way to Jerusalem.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: The most just ruler of his generation fell defending a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: strategic corridor that has always attracted wars. Centuries later, in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: seventeen ninety nine, Napoleon Bonaparte passed through Mgiddo during his
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: campaign in the East. Observing the terrain, he called the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: place the perfect battlefield. He knew how to recognize military geography.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: The Jezreel plain is wide, flat, offers total visibility and
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: constant access to water. It accommodates entire armies in motion.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: That is why the Book of Revelation points to this
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: very place as the setting for the final battle of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: history Hamagido in Hebrew, Armageddon in Greek, the mountain where,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: according to prophecy, the armies of the world will gather
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: at the end of time. To day, Mgido is a
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: National park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside Hazer
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and Beersheba. As you climb the tell, the visitor clearly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: sees the twenty six layers of destruction accumulated over millennia.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: You see the stables attributed to Solomon, the six chambered gate,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the rock carved water system, and then you look out
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: at the silent empty plane, imagining how many times that
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: ground has already been watered with blood and thinking about
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the prophecy that still points to the future. See you soon,