Ancient Egyptian soldiers and Greek mercenaries were at 'Armageddon' when biblical king was killed, study suggests

New archaeological evidence from the ancient city of Megiddo — the location of the final battle "Armageddon" in the Book of Revelation — supports the biblical story of an Israelite king and Egyptian pharaoh clashing there more than 2,600 years ago.

According to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament (which are slightly different collections of ancient Hebrew writings), the Kingdom of Judah's King Josiah confronted the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II at Megiddo in 609 B.C. Now, an analysis of ancient pottery fragments indicates that Megiddo was indeed occupied by the Egyptians at that time, Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University, told Live Science.

Finkelstein is the lead author of a study describing the finds, which was published Jan. 28 in The Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament. He said in an email that large numbers of Egyptian pottery fragments had been discovered alongside Greek pottery fragments in a layer dating to the late seventh century — a time when Egypt often employed Greek mercenaries alongside Egyptian troops. The researchers determined the origins of the fragments by examining the type of clay and their style.

The fragments support the biblical accounts that Egyptian forces were at Megiddo during Josiah's reign. However, the findings aren't direct evidence that Josiah was at the battle. If he was there, as the Bible says, it's unclear if Josiah died from wounds he'd suffered during a battle against the Egyptians at Megiddo, or if he was executed there as a vassal of the pharaoh. Josiah's death was later said to foretell the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. to the Neo-Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II, whose forces destroyed the First Temple, also known as Solomon's Temple.

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Archaeologist Assaf Kleiman of Ben-Gurion University, a study co-author, told Live Science in an email that the confrontation between the two rulers was described differently in two different places in the Bible. "The Josiah-Necho event at Megiddo in 609 BCE is described in the Bible twice: as an execution in a short chronistic verse in Kings and as a decisive battle in Chronicles," he said. The Book of Kings was written close to the time of the reported events, but the Book of Chronicles was composed centuries later, so the account in the Book of Kings was more reliable, he said.

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The finds indicate that Egyptian troops were stationed there with a contingent of Greek mercenaries when the biblical King Josiah of Judea was killed in 609 B.C.

Experts say it is not clear whether King Josiah went to Megiddo to do battle as an enemy or as the leader of a vassal state who was executed by Pharaoh Necho.

Ancient city

The ruins of Megiddo are now in a national park about 18 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Haifa. Megiddo was a strategically important city at a crossroads on trade and military routes, and it was occupied at different times by Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians. Many great battles occurred at Megiddo, and its name inspired the word "Armageddon"—the location of a final battle prophesied in the New Testament's Book of Revelation, which now refers generally to the idea of the end of the world.

Excavations at Megiddo have unearthed more than 20 archaeological layers since the 1920s. The layer with Egyptian and Greek pottery fragments described in the latest study is among several layers that date from after 732 B.C., when records indicate Megiddo was conquered by the Neo-Assyrians under their king Tiglath-Pileser III. According to the Bible, the northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Neo-Assyrians about 10 years later, followed by the expulsion of the "10 tribes" or "lost tribes" of Israel.

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The many fragments of Greek pottery found at Megiddo suggest a contingent of Greek mercenaries were stationed there alongside Egyptian troops.

The many Egyptian pottery fragments found in the same place indicate Megiddo was then under the military control of a force of Egyptian troops.

Battle or execution

There is debate among academics whether the encounter between Josiah and Necho at Megiddo in 609 B.C. was actually a battle, or if Necho had merely executed his vassal Josiah there—in other words, whether the southern Israelite kingdom of Judah was subordinate to Egypt at that time. The Bible does not record this, but history and archaeology indicate Egypt took over the region after 630 B.C. as Neo-Assyrian power declined.

Historian Jacob Wright, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University who was not involved in the study, told Live Science that Josiah had probably traveled from Jerusalem to Megiddo to pay homage to Necho but was executed there for an unknown reason.

Wright and Reinhard Kratz, a historian at the University of Göttingen in Germany who was also not involved in the study, both noted that the relevant verse in the Book of Kings says only that Josiah traveled to Megiddo and was "put to death" there — and that nothing was written about a battle until more than 100 years later in the Book of Chronicles.

The authors of the new study, too, are cautious about the circumstances of Josiah's death.

Finkelstein noted that Josiah was considered an exceptionally pious king, and that the idea of "Armageddon" had only begun after his death. This suggests Josiah's death had led to prophecies that the final battle between the forces of God and the forces of evil would take place where he died, Finkelstein said.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 9:28 a.m. ET to correctly attribute a quote explaining that the Josiah-Necho event at Megiddo is described twice in the Bible. That quote was said by archaeologist Assaf Kleiman of Ben-Gurion University, not by Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University.