Dominic Green Dominic Green

King Solomon’s lost city will remain lost forever

In the layers of 20 other ancient cities that comprise Har Megiddo — or Armageddon — Solomon’s has proved impossible to identify

Date palms in the ruins of Megiddo

Armageddon began as Har Megiddo, the Hill of Megiddo in northern Israel. The theological aspect is Christian. For Jews, ancient or modern, Megiddo is more existential than eschatological. The name denotes a fortress overlooking a strategic crossroads: Megiddo means ‘strength’. This is where the ancient Via Maris (the ‘way of the sea’, or coastal road) between Egypt and the Fertile Crescent cuts inland, through a pass from the Carmel mountains and into the Jezreel Valley.

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