Israeli Archaeologists Use New Technology To Verify Biblical Account Of Destruction Of Philistine City

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Using groundbreaking Israeli technology that measures the Earth’s magnetic field, archaeologists in Israel have been able to verify the timing of the Biblical destruction of the Philistine city of Gath by Hazael, king of Aram, as recorded in 2 Kings 17:17, All Israel News (AIN) reports.

Conducted by archaeologists from Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, and Ariel University, the research has been published in PLOS One journal in an article titled “Applying thermal demagnetization to archaeological materials: A tool for detecting burnt clay and estimating its firing temperature,” AIN reports.

Using their study of findings from Tell es-Safi (biblical Gath), the researchers have been able to show that the bricks in a wall from Gath were burned in a conflagration during the destruction of the city and not made from kiln-fired bricks as had been previously thought.

“Our findings are important for determining the intensity of the fire and the scope of destruction in Gath—the largest and most powerful city in the land at the time, and also for understanding construction practices in the region,” the study’s co-author Professor Aren Maeir from the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan said in a statement.

“…When bricks are found in an archaeological excavation, several questions must be asked,” Dr. Yoav Vaknin from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, the study’s leader, said in a separate statement. “First, have the bricks been fired, and if so, were they fired in a kiln before construction or in situ, in a destructive conflagration event? Our method can provide conclusive answers.”

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