Travel Stories - Israël

After lunch, we drove away from Tiberias directly by car to go to Tel Aviv. In that city I met an Israeli/Dutch couple who live there and have been invited there for a few days. Because she has an appointment in Tel Aviv early in the morning, we will spend the night there with friends. On the way we decide to visit the site known as the place where the very last battle on Earth would be fought - Armageddon - it has been a very important and strategic place since ancient times. We park the car and walk to the entrance to pay.

It is hot, dusty and the site seems completely deserted. Like almost every fortress this also is situated a bit higher than the rest of the area and we have a beautiful view of the "Jezreeel” valley. So here was the very important pass through the Karmel Mountains where so many and so heavily have been fought over. For us it is a jumble of stones, rocks, information panels and gravel paths but there seem to be remnants of no less than 26 sites that are always built on top of each other. Megiddo has been an important place since ancient times and has remained that way throughout the millennia. It controlled the western branch of a narrow pass and an old trade route between Egypt and Assyria. Megiddo was an important city state in Canaanite antiquity. The place and its surroundings have been inhabited from 7000 BC up to 500 BC. 

The first major battle that took place here was between the Egyptian army and a Canaanite coalition in the year 1478 BC. This battle is described in detail in hieroglyphics on the walls of the Temple of “Karnak” in Egypt. Many battles followed before David conquered the site; his son Solomon would turn Megiddo into one of his crown jewels of his empire. On an information board we read that Solomon was laying garrison here in fourteen hundred wagons and twelve thousand horsemen. Archaeologists thought for a few years that the excavations they were working on were the site of the horse stables from that time with as many as 1,000 horses but unfortunately. In the time of the Romans, Megiddo was a legion base where now the site of the current prison of Megiddo is. The last important battle stems from WWI; between 19 and 25 September 1918, the Allied Forces would be together give their allies the final blow to the Ottomans in their Sinai and Palestinian campaign. While the Arab rebels attacked the lines of communication, the British and Indian units attacked the Ottomans here and made a breach in their defense. The victory resulted in many tens of thousands of prisoners of war and a lot of conquered territory and was a precursor to the victory in Damascus. This place was also - as in many other places in present-day Israel - also fought during the war of independence.

For everything we see here you have to have a very good feeling of imagination to see what has happened here. A few stairs of stone and a lot of ruin. Only the tunnel dating from the 9th century BC where we walk would still be as good as intact. From the city a steep, sixty-meter deep shaft led to the underground well and the water reservoir. A tunnel of 120 meters is carved into the rock to get to the source. The water supply was the big problem for every antique city. If the source was low (and that was usually the case) and the city was high because of the necessary defense, the big question was how to “maintain” and get enough water up in wartime. And that's exactly the case here in Megiddo. 

We walk back to the entrance and see the big sign that says that Megiddo was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005. In the car we immediately turn on the air conditioning because it is to suffocate. On to Tel Aviv.