Highlights

• Armageddon is a popular site for the coach loads of tourists visiting the sites of the Holy Land. There is also a busy programme of excavations.
• In 2005, work to expand the ageing Megiddo Prison uncovered the remains of a third-century Christian prayer hall, including a mosaic referring to “God Jesus Christ”.
• The building with the mosaic was excavated, earlier artefacts found, and the site was covered up under the supervision of archaeologists.
• Now, after years of legal and bureaucratic delays, the prison is to be relocated, freeing up the site for further exploration potentially as early as 2021.
• The prospect already has archaeologists excitedly talking about an area they have started to call “Greater Megiddo”.
• The earliest written reference to Megiddo seems to have been during the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III, who defeated Syrian and Canaanite States there in 1468 B.C.

It later fell to the Israelites, and then to the Assyrians in 733 B.C. In 1918, the British military commander General Edmund Allenby routed Turkish forces there and he later took the title Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and of Felixstowe.

Source: The Hindu