Biblical Tels - Megiddo, Hazor, Beer Sheba

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Ancient Urban Centers: A Journey Through the Biblical Tels of Megiddo, Hazor, and Beer Sheba

The Biblical Tels - Megiddo, Hazor, and Beer Sheba - are significant archaeological sites in Israel, each offering a unique glimpse into the rich history of the region. These tels, or prehistoric settlement mounds, are characteristic of the eastern Mediterranean and have been instrumental in understanding the cultural, political, and economic developments of the Levant over millennia.

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UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site

Tels (prehistoric settlement mounds), are characteristic of the flatter lands of the eastern Mediterranean, particularly Lebanon, Syria, Israel and eastern Turkey. Of more than 200 tels in Israel, Megiddo, Hazor and Beer Sheba are representative of those that contain substantial remains of cities with biblical connections. The three tels also present some of the best examples in the Levant of elaborate Iron Age, underground water-collecting systems, created to serve dense urban communities. Their traces of construction over the millennia reflect the existence of centralized authority, prosperous agricultural activity and the control of important trade routes.

UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site

Criterion (ii): The three tels represent an interchange of human values throughout the ancient near-east, forged through extensive trade routes and alliances with other states and manifest in building styles which merged Egyptian, Syrian and Aegean influences to create a distinctive local style.

Criterion (iii): The three tels are a testimony to a civilisation that has disappeared –that of the Cananean cities of the Bronze Age and the biblical cities of the Iron Age-, manifest in their expressions of creativity: town planning, fortifications, palaces, and water collection technologies.

Criterion (iv): The biblical cities exerted a powerful influence on later history through the biblical narrative.

Criterion (vi): The three tels, through their mentions in the Bible, constitute a religious and spiritual testimony of outstanding universal value.

Encyclopedia Record: Tel Megiddo

Tel Megiddo, Arabic: Tell el-Muteselim, is the site of the ancient city of Megiddo, the remains of which form a tell or archaeological mound, situated in northern Israel at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley. During the Bronze Age, Megiddo was an important Canaanite city-state, and in the Iron Age, it became a royal city in the Kingdom of Israel. The site is renowned for its historical, geographical, and theological significance, especially under its Greek name Armageddon, which is famously associated with the biblical Battle of Armageddon as described in the Book of Revelation.

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