How archaeologists reconstructed the burning of Jerusalem in 586 BCE

There’s hardly ever time to jot down about each cool science-y story that comes our approach. So this yr, we’re as soon as once more operating a particular Twelve Days of Christmas collection of posts, highlighting one science story that fell by way of the cracks in 2020, every day from December 25 by way of January 5. As we speak: Archaeologists relied on chemical clues and strategies like FTIR spectroscopy and archaeomagnetic evaluation to reconstruct the burning of Jerusalem by Babylonian forces round 586 BCE.

Archaeologists have uncovered new proof in assist of Biblical accounts of the siege and burning of the town of Jerusalem by the Babylonians round 586 BCE, in keeping with a September paper revealed within the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The Hebrew bible incorporates the one account of this momentous occasion, which included the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. “The Babylonian chronicles from these years weren’t preserved,” co-author Nitsan Shalom of Tel Aviv College in Israel informed New Scientist. In response to the biblical account, “There was a violent and full destruction, the entire metropolis was burned and it stayed fully empty, just like the descriptions you see in [the Book of] Lamentations concerning the metropolis abandoned and in full distress.”

Judah was a vassal kingdom of Babylon throughout the late seventh century BCE, below the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II. This didn’t sit effectively with Judah’s king, Jehoiakim, who revolted in opposition to the Babylonian king in 601 BCE regardless of being warned not to take action by the prophet Jeremiah. He stopped paying the required tribute and sided with Egypt when Nebuchadnezzar tried (and failed) to in invade that nation.  Jehoiakim died and his son Jeconiah succeeded him when Nebuchadnezzar’s forces besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE. The town was pillaged and Jeconiah surrendered and was deported to Babylon for his bother, together with a considerable portion of Judah’s inhabitants. (The Ebook of Kings places the quantity at 10,000.) His uncle Zedekiah turned king of Judah.

Zedekiah additionally chafed below Babylonian rule and revolted in flip, refusing to pay the required tribute and in search of alliance with the Egyptian pharaoh Hophra. This resulted in a brutal 30-month siege by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces in opposition to Judah and its capital, Jerusalem. Finally the Babylonians prevailed once more, breaking by way of the town partitions to overcome Jerusalem. Zedekiah was compelled to look at his sons killed and was then blinded, sure, and brought to Babylon as a prisoner. This time Nebuchadnezzar was much less merciful and ordered his troops to fully destroy Jerusalem and pull down the wall round 586 BCE.

There may be archaeological proof to assist the account of the town being destroyed by hearth, together with close by villages and cities on the western border. Three residential buildings have been excavated between 1978 and 1982 and located to comprise burned picket beams relationship to round 586 BCE. Archaeologists additionally discovered ash and burned picket beams from the identical time interval once they excavated a number of buildings on the Giv’ati Parking Lot archaeological website, near the assumed location of Solomon’s Temple. Samples taken from a plaster ground confirmed publicity to excessive temperatures of not less than 600 levels Celsius

Nonetheless, it wasn’t attainable to find out from that proof whether or not the fires have been intentional or unintended, or the place the hearth began if it was certainly intentional. For this newest analysis, Shalom and her colleagues centered on the two-story Constructing 100 on the Giv’ati Parking Lot website. They used Fourier rework infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy—which measures the absorption of infrared mild to find out to what diploma a pattern had been heated—and archaeomagnetic evaluation, which determines whether or not samples containing magnetic minerals have been sufficiently heated to reorient these compounds to a brand new magnetic north.

The evaluation revealed various levels of publicity to high-temperature hearth in three rooms (designated A, B, and C) on the underside degree of Constructing 100, with Room C displaying the obvious proof. This may need been an indication that Room C was the ignition level, however there was no hearth path; the burning of Room C seemed to be remoted. Mixed with an earlier 2020 research on segments of the second degree of the constructing, the authors concluded that a number of fires have been lit within the constructing and the fires burned strongest within the higher flooring, aside from that “intense native hearth” in Room C on the primary degree.

“When a construction burns, warmth rises and is concentrated beneath the ceiling,” the authors wrote. “The partitions and roof are subsequently heated to greater temperatures than the ground.” The presence of charred beams on the flooring counsel this was certainly the case: a lot of the warmth rose to the ceiling, burning the beams till they collapsed to the flooring, which in any other case have been subjected to radiant warmth. However the extent of the particles was seemingly not brought about simply by that collapse, suggesting that the Babylonians intentionally went again in and knocked down any remaining partitions.

Moreover, “They focused the extra necessary, the extra well-known buildings within the metropolis,” Shalom informed New Scientist, slightly than destroying every part indiscriminately. “2600 years later, we’re nonetheless mourning the temple.”

Whereas they discovered no proof of extra fuels that may have served as accelerants, “we might assume the hearth was deliberately ignited  attributable to its widespread presence in all rooms and each tales of the constructing,” Shalom et al. concluded. “The finds inside the rooms point out there was sufficient flammable materials (vegetal and picket gadgets and building materials) to make extra gasoline pointless. The widespread presence of charred stays suggests a deliberate destruction by hearth…. [T]he unfold of the hearth and the speedy collapse of the constructing point out that the destroyers invested nice efforts to fully demolish the constructing and take it out of use.”

DOI: Journal of Archaeological Science, 2023. 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105823  (About DOIs).