Archaeologists have discovered new evidence supporting the Hebrew written records about the siege and burning of the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, according to a research paper published in September in the journal of archaeological sciences.
Historical Context
Judah was a vassal kingdom of Babylon in the late seventh century BCE, under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II. This was unacceptable to the King of Judah, Jehoiakim, who rebelled against the King of Babylon in 601 BCE despite the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah. He stopped paying the required tribute and allied with Egypt when Nebuchadnezzar attempted (and failed) to invade that land. Jehoiakim died and was succeeded by his son Jeconiah when Nebuchadnezzar’s forces besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE. The city was looted, Jeconiah surrendered, and he was exiled to Babylon along with a large portion of the population of Judah. (The Book of Kings puts the number at 10,000.) His uncle Zedekiah became king of Judah.
The Siege and Burning
Zedekiah also rebelled against Babylonian rule, refusing to pay the required tribute and seeking an alliance with the Egyptian pharaoh Hophra. This led to a brutal siege that lasted for 30 months by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces against Judah and its capital Jerusalem. In the end, the Babylonians prevailed again, breaching the city walls to occupy Jerusalem. Zedekiah was forced to watch his sons be killed, then was blinded and taken captive to Babylon. This time, Nebuchadnezzar was less merciful, ordering his soldiers to completely destroy Jerusalem and demolish the wall around it in 586 BCE.
Archaeological Evidence
There is archaeological evidence supporting records that indicate the city’s destruction by fire, along with nearby villages and towns on the western border. Three residential structures were excavated between 1978 and 1982, and they were found to contain charred wooden beams dating back to around 586 BCE. Archaeologists also found ash and charred wooden beams from the same time period when they excavated several buildings at the Givati parking lot site, near the supposed location of Solomon’s Temple. Samples taken from a plaster floor showed exposure to high temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius.
Analysis of the Remains
However, it was not possible to determine whether the fires were intentional or accidental, or where the fires started if they were indeed intentional. For this latest research, Shalom and her colleagues focused on building number 100 in the Givati parking lot. They used Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) – which measures infrared light absorption to determine the temperature of the sample – and magnetic remanence analysis, which determines whether samples containing magnetic minerals were heated enough to reorient those compounds toward a new magnetic north.
The analysis revealed varying degrees of exposure to high heat in three rooms (designated A, B, and C) in the basement of building 100, with room C showing the clearest evidence. This may indicate that room C was the ignition point, but there was no fire path; the burning of room C appeared isolated. The researchers concluded from this study and a previous study in 2020 on parts of the second floor of the building that multiple fires were ignited in the building and that the fires burned more intensely in the upper floors, except for the intense localized fire in room C on the first floor.
The researchers added that “when a building burns, the heat rises and concentrates under the ceiling. Therefore, the walls and the ceiling are heated to higher temperatures than the floor.” The presence of charred beams on the floors indicates that this was indeed the case: most of the heat rose to the ceiling, causing the beams to burn until they collapsed onto the floors, which in turn were subjected to radiant heat. However, it is likely that the debris was not solely the result of this collapse, suggesting that the Babylonians returned deliberately and demolished any remaining walls.
Confirmed
Shalom told New Scientist that they “targeted the most important and most famous buildings in the city,” rather than randomly destroying everything. “After 2600 years, we are still mourning the temple.”
Although there is no evidence of additional fuel that may have played a role in accelerating the fire, Shalom and others concluded that “we can assume that the fire was deliberately ignited due to its presence in all rooms and floors of the building,” and that “the things found inside the rooms indicate the presence of flammable materials (plant materials, wood, and construction materials) making additional fuel unnecessary. The widespread presence of burned remains suggests intentional destruction by fire… the spread of the fire and the rapid collapse of the building indicate that the destroyers made significant efforts to completely destroy the building and render it unusable.”
Source: Journal of Archaeological Science, 2023. 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105823
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