Aerial view of Tel Megiddo. AVRAM GRAICER, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Although remembered in the Bible as one of Judah’s most pious rulers, King Josiah met a rather untimely death, slain at Megiddo by Pharaoh Necho II. While Josiah’s death is recorded in both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, no archaeological evidence has ever been found to corroborate the story, until now. Publishing in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, archaeologists excavating at the site of Megiddo in northern Israel propose that new ceramic finds provide the first evidence for Egyptian forces stationed in the city at the time of Josiah’s end.

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When Egypt Reigned at Megiddo

The death of pious King Josiah at the hands of Pharaoh Necho II at Megiddo (c. 609 BCE) was the beginning of the end for the biblical kingdom of Judah, which just a few decades later would finally fall at the hands of the Babylonians. Now, the discovery of massive amounts of Egyptian and Greek pottery has confirmed at least one major element of the story: that Egyptian forces and their Greek mercenaries had a significant presence at Megiddo at the end of the seventh century BCE.

In searching for traces of the biblical event, the archaeologists had little to go on, with much of the upper layers of the archaeological mound at Megiddo having been removed by prior excavations. Finally identifying a promising spot, known as Area X, the team hit pay dirt: a small area containing the remains of a mudbrick wall and two successive buildings with well-preserved layers dating from the eighth to sixth centuries BCE.

The earliest layers excavated in the area contained evidence of the Israelite occupation of the site and the fiery destruction that brought that occupation to its end at the hands of the Assyrian army under Tiglath-Pileser III (c. 732 BCE). Later layers showed evidence for the site’s Assyrian occupation, a period when it was the capital of the province of Magiddu and home to a mixed population of Israelites and deportees from around the Assyrian Empire. None of that was unexpected based on previous excavations. However, it was the latest layers of Area X that provided striking new evidence of the biblical story.

Although no destruction layer was identified at the end of Assyrian control over the site (mid- to late seventh century), there was a sudden change in ceramic remains, with the inclusion of a large amount of imported Egyptian and eastern Greek pottery. Dating to the late seventh century BCE, these ceramic finds perfectly matched the period of Josiah’s death. According to the excavators, no other site in the region has such a large amount of Egyptian pottery, and no non-coastal site has as much Greek pottery.

Considering the data, the archaeologists suggest that the most logical explanation for such a large and sudden presence of Egyptian and Greek pottery is the presence of a large garrison of Egyptian and Greek troops, the latter well known as mercenaries who served under the employ of Necho II. Besides fitting the biblical story, the evidence also fits with Assyrian history. Conquering the southern Levant in the latter half of the eighth century, the Assyrian Empire would slowly start to decline, and upon losing control of the Levant about a century later, it was Assyria’s Egyptian allies that filled the power vacuum. In the last two decades of the seventh century, Assyria was on the ropes, under attack by the Babylonians, the Medes, and the Persians. It was then that Pharaoh Necho rode out from Egypt to aid the Assyrians.

As recorded in 2 Kings 23:29, “In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him, and Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo, as soon as he saw him.” Although 2 Chronicles 35:22–24 specifies that Josiah fought against Necho (an element of the story that is debated by scholars), it can no longer be doubted that the Egyptian army was stationed at Megiddo, exactly where and when the biblical narrative places them.

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on March 10, 2025.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

More of Megiddo’s Roman Legionary Camp Revealed

Twenty Years at Megiddo 

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Megiddo, Israel

The Megiddo Mosaic

King Solomon’s Stables—Still at Megiddo?

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Photo: Dafna Gazit, IAA

Because of their nature as organic materials that inevitably decompose, textiles rarely survive in the archaeological record. When circumstances align for their preservation, these fragile artifacts provide a window into the social, economic, and technological spheres of the ancient world.

In January 2021, researchers at the site of Timna, in southern Israel’s arid Negev region, announced a unique discovery. They had recovered wool fabric not only dated all the way back to the tenth century B.C.E.—but also dyed purple! These are the first Iron Age purple textiles from the entire southern Levant.

Led by Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University, the Central Timna Valley Project found three purple textile fragments in a heap of industrial waste on “Slaves’ Hill” (a large copper smelting camp) at the site. The fabric has been dated by radiocarbon to the late 11th–early 10th centuries B.C.E. (early Iron Age), which places these fragments in the days of the biblical kings David and Solomon. Some scholars believe that Timna at that time was a copper mine and smelting center for ancient Edom, Israel’s neighbor to the east.^a Despite the name of Slaves’ Hill, the workers at this site were not slaves, but highly skilled metalworkers.

The dye on the textile fragments was analyzed at Bar-Ilan University. Through High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), the researchers ascertained that the dyestuff was true purple—dye from murex snails—known throughout history as royal purple. The process of extracting dyestuff from the snail’s hypobranchial gland is laborious, which made it expensive. With each snail containing less than a gram of dyestuff, hundreds of snails were required to dye one textile. Usually only the elite could afford to purchase purple garments, whereas fabric colored with plant dyes was more affordable. In the Bible, purple garments are mentioned primarily in regard to the wardrobe of the priesthood and royalty and to the decoration of the tabernacle and the Temple.

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Since the art of dyeing with murex shells stopped in antiquity, researchers had to rely on historical texts, such as Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (9.62, 137) from the first century C.E., that describe the process, and on experimental archaeology. Professor Zohar Amar of Bar-Ilan University even traveled to Italy to reconstruct some of the complex multistep dyeing process!

Several varieties of sea mollusks common to the Mediterranean Sea were used for purple and blue dye in antiquity: the banded dye-murex (Hexaplex trunculus), spiny dye-murex (Bolinus brandaris), and red-mouthed rock-shell (Stramonita haemastoma). While B. brandaris and S. haemastomaproduce a pink-purple hue, H. trunculus produces more violet-blue hues.

The three species of mollusks used to produce purple dye in antiquity (from left to right): S. haemastoma, H. trunculus, and B. brandaris. Shachar Cohern, Courtesy of Zohar Amar

Researchers ascertained that dyestuff from either B. brandaris or S. haemastoma was used to color two of the purple textiles from Timna. While it’s impossible to narrow to the specific species, the experiments showed that extracting dyestuff from S. haemastoma is slightly more convenient because the gland is larger and contains more dyestuff.

The third purple fabric seems to have been dyed with a “double dyeing” method that involves dipping the threads in two baths of dye. Pliny the Elder describes this technology and the resulting color as the most prestigious shade of purple. Coloring the thread with dye from either B. brandarisor S. haemastoma and then with dye from H. trunculus would achieve a color similar to the third purple textile from Timna.

The earliest archaeological evidence for true purple dye might date to the 19th century B.C.E. At Minoan sites (on modern Crete), archaeologists found large piles of murex shells, potentially serving as indirect evidence of the dye extraction process. They have also uncovered ceramic basins with dye stains, dated from the 14th to seventh centuries B.C.E., at several sites along the Mediterranean coast of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Textual evidence of purple dye comes from 15th-century Nuzi (Iraq), 14th-century Amarna (Egypt), 13th-century Knossos (Crete), and from later, classical sources.

The Phoenicians, who lived on the Mediterranean coast, became famous as producers and sellers of purple cloth. Not surprisingly, most of the archaeological sites with evidence of the purple dye industry in the southern Levant appear in Phoenicia: Tyre, Shikmona, Tel Kabri, and Tel Keisan. Even the Bible records their mastery: When King Solomon began building the Jerusalem Temple, he asked King Hiram of Tyre to please send him “an artisan skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, trained also in engraving” (2 Chronicles 2:7).

Wool fabric from 10th century B.C.E. found in Timna. Photo: Dafna Gazit, IAA

The excavators believe that the cloth recovered from Timna was produced in Phoenicia. Its presence in an Edomite copper production facility testifies to the trade networks in place during the early Iron Age and to the elite standing of the workers there. The smelters were some of the most highly skilled people in their society. Excavations at Timna have revealed that these metalworkers even enjoyed luxurious food^b—in addition to wearing purple clothing! Unfortunately, the lower-class miners would not have experienced the same high standard of living.

The authors of the study note an interesting parallel between their discovery and Judges 8:26, which describes the kings of Midian as wearing gold and “purple garments.” Although the kingdom of Midian has not been identified archaeologically, it was likely a neighbor in the desert areas south of Edom. The events described in Judges 8 have traditionally been dated to the early Iron Age, the same period as the purple fabric fragments from Timna. Thus, a biblical text describing roughly the same period associates purple garments with the elite class of a nomadic or semi-nomadic desert kingdom.

There’s no doubt that Timna’s purple textiles provide insight not only into the semi-nomadic kingdom of Edom but also into the greater economy and technological advances of the southern Levant in the early Iron Age.

Members, Read more in the BAS Library:

Archaeological Views: Biblical Archaeology’s Architectural Bias by Erez Ben-Yosef

Condemned to the Mines: Copper production & Christian persecution by By Mohammad Najjar and Thomas E. Levy

Life Was Not So Bad for Smelters
 by Hershel Shanks

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Ushtabi of Wendjebaendjedet, a high-ranking official of Pharaoh Psusennes I. Credit: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Elie Posner.

A recent scholarly article has published new data regarding the source of Egyptian copper during the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070 B.C.E–665 B.C.E.), showing that Egypt’s copper likely originated in the Arabah, the wide desert valley that forms the modern border between Israel and Jordan.[i] In addition to showing trade connections, this discovery could also provide new evidence on the reasons for the famous military expedition of the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I (biblical Shishak) to the southern Levant in the mid-tenth century B.C.E.

At the height of Egypt’s power during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 B.C.E.), Egypt formed complex trade networks that supplied its empire with valuable goods, including copper—obtained from Sinai and the Arabah—that was used to produce bronze weapons and luxury objects. With Egypt’s decline at the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1150 B.C.E.), however, the trading networks collapsed and the copper mines were abandoned. It was only during the subsequent Third Intermediate Period that bronze objects again circulated widely in Egypt. This dramatic increase in bronze artifacts has led scholars to wonder how Egypt procured the necessary copper for their production.

To answer this question, a team from the Israel Museum and Tel Aviv University recently took samples from several Egyptian artifacts dated to the Third Intermediate Period. The team performed chemical analyses on four bronze funeral statuettes from the reign of Pharaoh Psusennes I (r. late 11th century B.C.E.) and concluded that the copper from the figures almost certainly originated from the Arabah. Given that the Arabah shows no signs of having been under direct Egyptian control during this period, the team believes that Egypt likely received copper through local trade networks rather than direct exploitation.

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What does all of this have to do with Shoshenq I, the famous Shishak of the Bible who supposedly threatened Jerusalem during the reign of Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25–26; 2 Chronicles 12:1–12), only a half century after the reign of Psusennes I? While it has long been thought that part of Shishak’s reason for invading the southern Levant was to gain access to Arabah copper, there was little firm evidence to support this hypothesis. With these new data, the team suggests that Shishak’s campaign was aimed at creating a monopoly on the Levantine copper mines and pushing out competition for this scarce and important resource. If this is correct, Shishak’s reported ransack of Jerusalem could be understood as an attempt to reassert dominance over the Levantine kingdoms to prevent them from overturning Egypt’s new role in the copper trade.

Read more in the BAS Library:

It Is There: Ancient Texts Prove It
by Nadav Naʼaman
With unqualified certainty, Margreet Steiner asserts that in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1150 B.C.E.), the period just before the Israelite settlement, there was “no … town, let alone a city” of Jerusalem. As far as the archaeological record is concerned, there is, for that period, “simply nothing.”

Egyptian Papyrus Sheds New Light on Jewish History
by: Karel van der Toorn
The enigmatic Papyrus Amherst 63 was likely created by the descendants of the Aramean and Judean soldiers who in the fifth century B.C.E. had been stationed at the southern Egyptian border. Recorded in a cursive script derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Aramaic texts of the Amherst papyrus keep challenging what we know about Aramean religion and the history of the Hebrew Bible.

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Proto-Aeolic baluster columns of an ancient window. <em>Photo: Shai Halevi, IAA</em>

Dozens of architectural limestone remains were found in excavations of the Armon Hanatziv Promenade. Some of these are Proto-Aeolic capitals, a signature of the First Temple period (1000-586 B.C.E.), representing the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Discovered were three complete stone capitals, decorative items from window frames, and balustrades which had tiny Proto-Aeolic capitals attached. As Yaakov Billig, director of the excavation, explains in the City of David press release, “The level of workmanship on these capitals is the best seen to date, and the degree of preservation of the items is rare.”

Columns Found at Armon Hanatziv: Photo: Yoli Schwartz IAA

Billig speculates these architectural artifacts are from a regal structure built during the restoration of Jerusalem following the biblical siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib and the Assyrians in 701 B.C.E. The conflict between the attacking Sennacherib and the Judahites under the rule of King Hezekiah appears in the Hebrew Bible in both Kings (2 Kings 18:13-19:37) and Chronicles (2 Chronicles 32:1-23), and also in the cuneiform Annals of Sennacherib. Jerusalem barely survived. It says in Kings that 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were slaughtered by the Lord’s angel. John Bright and other historians have speculated that illness spread through the Assyrians, as was not uncommon to armies on campaign, and stopped Sennacherib from decimating Jerusalem.

Raw Finds at Armon Hanatziv: Photo: Shai Halevi, IAA

This discovery came from excavations on the promenade where a visitor center is planned. The work, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority, is funded by the Israeli Government Tourist Corporation and the Ir David Foundation.

If the Proto-Aeolic remains are truly from the period after Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, they would have been part of a magnificent building built in the 7th century B.C.E. as part of a revival that saw a boom in construction, especially in the area just beyond the walls of the city. As Billig suggests, the people of Jerusalem must have felt safe, and economic development would have been strong to support this construction as well as other villas and government buildings beyond the safety of Jerusalem’s walls.

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Sennacherib’s Siege of Jerusalem: Once or Twice? by Mordechai Cogan. The Assyrian monarch Sennacherib’s military campaign against King Hezekiah of Judah is one of the best-documented and most discussed events in the history of ancient Israel. The late-eighth-century B.C.E. encounter is reported in both Kings (2 Kings 18:13–19:37) and Chronicles (2 Chronicles 32:1–23). It is likely the backdrop for several prophetic teachings (for example, Isaiah 1:4–9, 22:1–14; Micah 1:10–16). In addition, we have a detailed cuneiform account of the campaign in the annals of Sennacherib (his third campaign). We even have a relief from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh depicting his conquest of Lachish, a visual account complemented by archaeological finds from the site south of Jerusalem.

A Tiny Piece of the Puzzle: Six-Letter Inscription Suggests Monumental Building of Hezekiah by Hershel Shanks. Ancient Jerusalem sometimes reveals itself in little bits. In this case, it is a tiny inscription with only six letters preserved. So little remains of ancient Israel in the City of David (the 12-acre ridge where the oldest inhabited part of Jerusalem is located) because later inhabitants continually destroyed evidence of earlier occupation. Over the millennia, the stones that made up the houses, temples and monuments of Iron Age Jerusalem were swept aside and scattered to make room for new settlements.

The Great Eighth Century by By Philip J. King. A century is a wholly arbitrary block of time. History surely does not proceed by 100-year chunks. And to mark the beginning and end of a historical period by the start and finish of a particular century can be justified by nothing more than our attraction for round numbers. Yet, if we don’t hold ourselves too precisely to these round numbers, a century is at least a convenient framework within which to look at the process of historical development.

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