9/1970

Megiddo of the Kings of Israel
YIGAEL YADIN
The Hebrew University
(Professor Yadin broke the news of his restudy of the Megiddo stratigraphy in the BA ten years ago, after the first of three short campaigns 1w describes in this article. The report was so important that we squeezed it in tiny type with only three photographs at the end of BA, XXIII.2. The article you are about to read contains much that is new and exciting; for that reason we have left a certain amount of repetition of the 1960 article in place so that the entire picture can be painted. — EFC)
Tbe endeavors of the spade to unearth the building remains of Solomon, greatest builder among Israel's kings, are part of the enthralling web of the excavations in the Holy Land during the last seyenty years. No doubt the crowning glory of Solomon's enterprises is the Temple he built in Jerusalem, to whieb, understandably, whole chapters in the Bible are dedicated. David, who spent bis life warring even beyond the borders of Israel, had no time to build fortifed cities (which bis offensive strategy in fast made unnecessary), let alone the Temple in Jerusalem. "You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord bis God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet" (I Kings 5:3).
Despite the detailed descriptions of the Temple's plan, its measurements and its holy vessels, scholars for the past few centuries haye struggled to reconstruct its plan and form, and their opinions differ to this day, mainly because we are unfamiliar with some of die basie architectural terms. In-
 

gutes Exemplar, ordentlich