Site Identification

For nearly 100 years of research, scholars held two possible identifications for the ancient site of Megiddo: el-Lejjûn and Tell el-Mutesellim. In his fourth century ad work On the Place-Names in the Holy Scripture (i.e., Onomasticon), Eusebius of Caesarea (ad 263–339) notes all the places names in the Bible, providing geographical and topographical information when possible. For sites whose location was lost by the Byzantine period—including Megiddo—Eusebius provides only the biblical data (128, 14–15; Klostermann, Das Onomastikon, 128: 14–15). Eusebius also noted a site called Legio (Λεγεω, Legeō) as a geographical landmark when identifying the location of nine sites in the Jezreel Valley and lower Galilee, indicating that Legio was a well-known location (Klostermann, Das Onomastikon, 14, 28, 56, 70, 98, 100, 108, 110, 116, 138).

Legio (or Legionis) was originally a Jewish village called Kefar ‘Othnai, but it came to be known as Legio because of its use as a garrison in the Late Roman period (ad 132–324). A metropolis grew up around the military camp and probably became known temporarily as Maximianopolis in the Byzantine period (ad 324–638), evidently sometime after the completion of the Onomasticon (Cline, The Battles of Armageddon, 114–15). According to Eusebius, Legio was situated four Roman miles northwest of Taanach and opposite Nazareth, 15 Roman miles to the east. Based on this, it would seem that by the time of Eusebius’ work, the name of ancient Megiddo had become Legio. Eshtori Ha-Parhi, a French-Jewish immigrant who settled in Palestine in the 14th century ad, reached this conclusion and noted in his geography of Palestine that Megiddo was called el-Lejjûn in the local Arabic, the name of an Arab village (now nonexistent) which preserved the name Legio of Eusebius’ Onomasticon (Luncz, Caftor va-Pherach, p. רצג, rtsg). That Lejjûn was Megiddo would remain the dominant conclusion for the next 600 years.

In 1835, German scholar Karl von Raumer argued that Lejjûn was to be identified with Maximianopolis in his geography of Palestine (von Raumer, Palästina, 402). Although this conclusion would later prove to be correct, an anonymous reviewer of Raumer’s geography asserted that Lejjûn was Megiddo instead (Anonymous, “Review of Raumer,” 920). In 1838, the American explorer and scholar Edward Robinson affirmed the Lejjûn-Megiddo connection for the following reasons:

1. Eusebius’ linkage of Legio with Taanach (a phenomenon similar to the biblical historians’ link between Megiddo and Taanach)

2. the respective references made by both the biblical authors and Eusebius to the “Valley of Megiddo” and the “Valley of Legio.”

3. Lejjûn had ancient Roman ruins visible on its surface, which at this time was the primary indicator for an ancient site.

Robinson therefore conjectured that the Roman name Legio must have been given to the already existent site of ancient Megiddo (Robinson, Biblical Researches, 177–80).

In 1851–1852, Dutch naval cartographer and surveyor Carel W. M. Van de Velde visited the Jezreel Valley and focused on another hill the vicinity of el-Lejjûn, a stately mound situated just off the main road. The mound was named Tell el-Metzellim, meaning “Mound of the Governor.” While Van de Velde initially affirmed Robinson’s conclusion that Lejjûn was Megiddo, he apparently changed his perspective a few years later, noting that “the fortified town of Megiddo was probably situated on the large Tell el-Metzellim” (Van de Velde, Narrative of a Journey, Vol. I, 352–354). He based his conclusion on the geographic and topographic connections along with his conjecture that the name of the mound referred to Solomon’s official, Ba’ana (1 Kgs 4:12; Van de Velde, Memoir, 333). Van de Velde also conjectured that Lejjûn was to be identified with Maximianopolis, as Raumer had asserted in 1835. Even Robinson later seemed to fluctuate between Lejjûn and Mutesellim as the locations of the actual ancient site (Robinson, “Outlines,” 122; id., Later Biblical Researches, 116–118).

Tell el-Mutesellim became well known after the publications of Van de Velde, but the generally accepted location of Megiddo was still el-Lejjûn. Josias L. Porter, who wrote the standard tour book of Palestine in 1858, noted that Lejjûn preserves the “the only existing remains of the Legio of Eusebius and Jerome, and of the Megiddo of the Bible,” but that from the summit of Tell el-Mutesellim, “the whole [Jezreel] plain is spread out like a map” (Porter, A Handbook for Travellers, 386). Likewise, the missionary and explorer William M. Thomson noted in 1882 that Tell el-Mutesellim “commands a magnificent view of the Great Plain” (Thomson, The Land and the Book, 212–214). The first major Bible dictionary in 1863 perpetuated the standard identification of Lejjûn with Megiddo (Howson, “Megiddo,” 2, 310–311).

In 1882, Claude R. Conder, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, suggested Khirbet el-Mujedda as an alternative view for the location of ancient Megiddo (Conder and Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, Vol. II, 90–99). While this Arabic toponym does preserve the name of Megiddo, this identification was not accepted based on its geographic location.

In 1894, historical geographer and Assyriologist George Adam Smith once again emphasized the connection between Megiddo and Lejjûn (Smith, Historical Geography, 386–387, n. 1). Then, in 1898, eminent Egyptologist and Syro-Palestinian archaeologist Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie connected Megiddo with Tell el-Mutesellim based on his study of the text of Thutmose III’s campaign record (Petrie, Syria and Egypt, 176). Following Petrie’s study, in 1901, the British surveyor and officer of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Charles W. Wilson, stated that Mutesellim, “a conspicuous feature in the landscape … is Megiddo” (Wilson, “Megiddo,” 334). At this time, biblical scholar C. Lucien Gautier affirmed that Mutesellim represented the acropolis of ancient Megiddo (Gautier, “Megiddo,” cols. 3011–12).

The research of the late 1890s and early 1900s led to the first archaeological expedition to Megiddo, which took place at Tell el-Mutesellim in 1903–1905. Following this early excavation, Harold H. Nelson of the University of Chicago submitted a doctoral dissertation on the battle of Thutmose III at Megiddo—i.e., Tell el-Mutesellim (Nelson, The Battle of Megiddo). Nelson’s work, coupled with the later researches of Smith, led to a relatively secure identification of Tell el-Mutesellim with Megiddo and a second extensive excavation at Mutesellim by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago from 1925–1939. Smith’s work was updated in 1931 following the discovery of the primary strata of Tell el-Mutesellim in the late 1920s. Smith then speculated that Megiddo’s function had been taken over by the southern site that would eventually become Roman Legio (Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, 386).

While the archaeological excavations at Tell el-Mutesellim have not revealed any evidence that could conclusively link the site to ancient Megiddo, excavations have revealed a long history of consistent habitation, as well as a rich repertoire of artifacts (Aharoni, Yadin, and Shiloh 1993: 1003–1023; Finkelstein, Ussishkin, and Halpern 2008: 1944–1950; for a detailed discussion of the archaeological analysis of the site see below). These factors indicate Tell el-Mutesellim’s strategic and important status in antiquity and align well with the identification of the site as Megiddo.