“El” is a generic name for “god,” like “Allah” in Arabic, or “God” in English.

The God of Israel revealed His name as יהוה  / YHVH (LORD in the KJV).

Before you are the idols talked about in Hosea 8:4 (“They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.”).

On the right is Baal. 1 Kings 18:21 tells of Elijah on Mount Carmel (“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”).

Interestingly, the name Elijah (El-Jah) means (remember Hebrew is right to left) YH (Jehovah) is the EL (God).

To the left are female fertility statues, 3,000 year old proofs that the Israelites disobeyed God, as Exodus 20:4 records: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Many Canaanites sought fertility from idols, but in Genesis 30:22, God opened Rachel’s womb – not Baal. 1 Samuel 1:5 records the Lord had shut up her womb. When God gave Hannah a son, she named him Samuel, as 1 Samuel 1:20 recounts Because I have asked him of the Lord.

Solomon & Ahab had thrones of ivory coated in gold

I Kings 10:18 Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold.

As did Ahab, I Kings 22:39 Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did , and the ivory house which he made , and all the cities that he built , are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

Sometimes the intact altar is on loan – this one appears to be a “destroyed altar”

Now Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places 1 Kings 3:3

Unlike a “Biblical” altar:

Exodus 27:2 And thou shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof: his horns shall be of the same: and thou shalt overlay it with brass.

God did not want altars everywhere, only in Jerusalem –  and Sennacherib noticed Hezekiah took away the bad altars and destroyed them like this one.

2 Kings 18:22 But if ye say unto me, We trust in the Lord our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

Megiddo was a royal city built by Solomon, as evidenced by the style of the capitals (shown in the picture) at the top of the columns.

1 Kings 9:15 And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

Often we think of Israel as just Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but it was a nation of many fortified cites. Megiddo goes back to the time of Joshua

Joshua 12:21 The king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one;

Megiddo was where good King Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Necho:

2 Kings 23:29 In his days Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him.

And is where the battle of Armageddon (mound of Megiddo) will be:

Revelation 16:16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

 

On the far right wall of the Megiddo Room is a fragment of one of the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible.

This is a replica of the (mostly) original Stele, housed in the Louvre in Paris.

The smoother surfaced parts are created based on the paper sketch, while the rougher fragments are the originals as they are today.

The Mesha Stele was found in Dibon, Jordan in August 1868 by a missionary. Pretty soon people realized this was very valuable and the Berlin Museum and the French Consulate got into a bidding war. The next year some local Arabs, realizing all that was at stake, laboriously hoisted it out of the earth and lit a fire around it, and after pouring cold water on it they chipped away several large pieces which they distributed among a few of them. Later the French re-assembled 669 of the estimated 1100 consonants from the pieces and preserved the inscription. It now remains in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The stone is written in Moabite, and refers to the “House of Omri”, Yahweh, and the “House of David.” The Bible talks about Mesha

2 Kings 3:4 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. 5 But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

This stele says “Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Chemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab.”

During this battle Jehoshaphat joined Ahab, and they ran out of water, and Elisha told them to dig ditches (2 Kings 3:16).

Another violation of the Ten Commandments. This is reminiscent of the Golden calf of I Kings 12:28-30 of Baal.

Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

Jeroboam may say “Is there anything inherently evil about a bull?” But when Canaanites worshipped animal replicas, God’s people had to be willing to do without to demonstrate their uniqueness to God.

Opposite the replica of the Rosetta Stone (located in the British Museum) is a collection of Egyptian Pottery.

Approximately 2090 BC – Abraham was in Egypt – check the dates to see objects from this era

Genesis 12:10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.

According to conservative Bible scholars, 1446 BC was the date for the Exodus. To the right of the Abrahamic era artifacts, are artifacts from the  Israelite enslavement era. Similar objects may have brought on the Exodus trip.

Exodus 3:22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.

Joseph was embalmed and coffined similar to this https://thetorah.com/our-mummified-patriarchs-jacob-and-joseph/
Genesis 50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.