Reconstructing biblical military campaigns using geomagnetic field data

Abstract

The Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts describe Egyptian, Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian military campaigns to the Southern Levant during the 10th to sixth centuries BCE. Indeed, many destruction layers dated to this period have been unearthed in archaeological excavations. Several of these layers are securely linked to specific campaigns and are widely accepted as chronological anchors. However, the dating of many other destruction layers is often debated, challenging the ability to accurately reconstruct the different military campaigns and raising questions regarding the historicity of the biblical narrative. Here, we present a synchronization of the historically dated chronological anchors and other destruction layers and artifacts using the direction and/or intensity of the ancient geomagnetic field recorded in mud bricks from 20 burnt destruction layers and in two ceramic assemblages. During the period in question, the geomagnetic field in this region was extremely anomalous with rapid changes and high-intensity values, including spikes of more than twice the intensity of today’s field. The data are useful in the effort to pinpoint these short-term variations on the timescale, and they resolve chronological debates regarding the campaigns against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the relationship between the two kingdoms, and their administrations.

Masters of mudbrick: Geoarchaeological analysis of Iron Age earthen public buildings at Ashdod‐Yam (Israel)

“…date for the destruction. Such a date is also corroborated by paleomagnetic results taken from the floors of the complex (Vaknin et al, 2022).…”

Archaeomagnetism in the Levant and Mesopotamia Reveals the Largest Changes in the Geomagnetic Field

“…The Levantine Archaeomagnetic Curve (LAC) is designed to enable both the statistical analysis of secular variation properties and archaeomagnetic dating. In this article, we focus on the geomagnetic implications of the curve, whereas in a sister article (Vaknin et al, 2022), we demonstrate the applications of the curve For a complete description and definitions of paleointensity statistics, see Paterson et al (2014).…”

“…The archaeointensity value of a group is calculated as an arithmetic mean of the samples' means after screening out outliers (e.g., K‐4 and Q‐4 in Figure 5 ). Two exceptions to this rule are related to destruction layers: a kiln from Horvat Tevet that had gone out of use when the site had been destroyed (Vaknin et al., 2022 ) and a clay‐made floor burnt during the historically dated Babylonian destruction (Vaknin et al., 2020 ); in these cases, a large number of specimens collected from the same thermal unit are averaged.…”

“…The Bayesian age model of the mound (Shaar et al., 2011 ), which was originally established using a magnetostratigraphic correlation with Khirbet en‐Nahas (Ben‐Yosef et al., 2009 ), is revised here to include only radiocarbon samples collected from Timna‐30 (Text S2 and Tables S6–S8 in Supporting Information S1 ) Materials dated by association to the Assyrian and Babylonian occupations or to the radiocarbon‐dated Aramean campaign. This data set includes 19 burnt structures (Vaknin et al., 2020 , 2022 ) and three groups of indicative ceramics that can be dated by association with cultural changes related to the occupations. The fired mud‐brick structures found in the burnt level are crucial anchors for two reasons.…”

“…Materials dated by association to the Assyrian and Babylonian occupations or to the radiocarbon‐dated Aramean campaign. This data set includes 19 burnt structures (Vaknin et al., 2020 , 2022 ) and three groups of indicative ceramics that can be dated by association with cultural changes related to the occupations. The fired mud‐brick structures found in the burnt level are crucial anchors for two reasons.…”