(ORDO NEWS) — A joint study by TAU and the Hebrew University, involving 20 researchers from different countries and disciplines, has made it possible to accurately date 21 archaeological layers at 17 archaeological sites in Israel by reconstructing the direction and intensity of the Earth‘s magnetic field.
New evidence confirms biblical accounts of Egyptian, Aramaic, Assyrian and Babylonian military campaigns against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The finds indicate, for example, that the army of Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus, was responsible for the destruction of several cities Tel Rehov, Tel Zait, and Horvat Tevet in addition to Gath of the Philistines.
At the same time, the study refutes the prevailing theory that Hazael was the conqueror who destroyed Tel Bet Shean.
Other geomagnetic data show that cities in the Negev were destroyed by the Edomites, who took advantage of the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah by the Babylonians.
The groundbreaking interdisciplinary research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and is based on Yoav Vaknin’s PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipchitz of the TAU Institute of Archeology and Prof. Ron Schaar of the Institute of Geosciences of the Hebrew University.
Geophysicists, trying to understand the mechanism of the Earth’s magnetic field, track its changes throughout history.
To this end, they use archaeological finds containing magnetic minerals, which, when heated or burned, register a magnetic field.
Thus, in a 2020 study, the researchers reconstructed the magnetic field as it was on the 9th of the month of Av, 586 BCE, the Jewish date for the destruction of the First Temple and the city of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army.
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