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.

Columns were an important part of ancient architecture and often portrayed a message, a symbol.

In ancient Persepolis, there were four columns which carried the ceiling of a small palace, called the Gate of All Nations or the Gate of Xerxes. Each column had a pair of twin bulls resting on top of it, which were used to hold the beams for the ceiling.

Two massive images of bulls were also on either side of the western entrance and two massive images of lamassu (a winged man-bull) were on either side of the eastern doorway.

Darius the Great, king of Persia, began this massive building project and it continued under his successors, Xerxes and Artaxerxes I.

Darius was king at the time when Daniel served as a president and was thrown into the lion’s den. (Daniel 6)

Xerxes (a.k.a. Ahasuerus) was the king we read about in the book of Esther, whom she married.

Susa, where Esther’s story occurred, is about 400 miles northwest of Persepolis. It’s also where Darius built an audience hall in his palace that was 128,000-square-miles and had thirty-six columns, with the same double bulls holding up the roof.

While the bulls were symbols of the strength of the king and his kingdom and the lamassu were symbols of protection, Persepolis was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC.

It’s amazing to think back on the incredible, Biblical history during the time period that these columns would have stood. Did Daniel wander among them in the audience hall? Did Esther gaze at their splendor in the palace?

The remains of these buildings are magnificent and one can only imagine how beautiful they must have been at the time.

Today, there are several museums where we can find portions of these columns, including the Louvre in Paris, France, and the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago, Illinois.

 

Resources:

https://toursofiran.com/blog/the-gate-of-all-nations/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/ancient-near-east-a/a/persepolis

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/persian-collections-louvre-susa.html