Megiddo Gallery September 30, 2010

In this section of the Museum, visitors can can examine artifacts from another important Oriental Institute excavation, the dig at Megiddo that covered a span in time from 5000 to 600 B.C. Each layer was carefully uncovered to reveal successive cultures that dominated the city, which is in modern Israel. Many of the items from Megiddo have never been exhibited before. Megiddo, like the rest of the Fertile Crescent, was a crossroads of cultures. Excavations unearthed altars used by non-Jewish peoples (the Canaanites) as well as a gold figure of El, their principal god. The Israelites, who emerged as the dominant people of that region in about 975 B.C. are documented by many objects of daily life, a large stamp engraved with a biblical text and an ossuary (box for bones) inscribed in Hebrew. Probably the most spectacular portion of the Megiddo gallery, however, is the Megiddo ivories. These exquisitely carved pieces of elephant tusks were inlays in furniture, and a particularly large piece was made into a game board.