"Megiddo in the Late Bronze Age: Radiocarbon Chronology and Historical Considerations"

Mario Martin
Researcher, Tel Aviv University
Co-Director of the Megiddo Expedition and Tel Shimron Excavations

Tuesday
February 19, 2019
12:00 PM

LaSalle Banks Room of the Oriental Institute

Megiddo has a well-established and complete stratigraphic sequence, with rich pottery assemblages from the late Middle Bronze Age, and the early Iron Age. An updated radiocarbon model for these periods will be presented, with a focus on the Late Bronze Age. Combined with the material culture evidence, these results allow for renewed discussion of the main archaeological and historical questions, including: the date and nature of the Middle Bronze/Late Bronze transition; the reflection of Tuthmosis III's campaign in the stratigraphic sequence; the size and importance of Megiddo in the Amarna period; the date of the LB IIB/LB III transition (Univ. of Chicago Strata VIIB/VIIA) in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Egyptian Dynasty; the gradual demist of the Late Bronze Age city and its correlation with the end of the Egyptian empire in Canaan; and the first appearance of Philistine pottery.