Reconstructing biblical military campaigns using geomagnetic field data
Open accessAbstract
The Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts describe Egyptian, Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian military campaigns to the Southern Levant during the 10th to sixth centuries BCE. Indeed, many destruction layers dated to this period have been unearthed in archaeological excavations. Several of these layers are securely linked to specific campaigns and are widely accepted as chronological anchors. However, the dating of many other destruction layers is often debated, challenging the ability to accurately reconstruct the different military campaigns and raising questions regarding the historicity of the biblical narrative. Here, we present a synchronization of the historically dated chronological anchors and other destruction layers and artifacts using the direction and/or intensity of the ancient geomagnetic field recorded in mud bricks from 20 burnt destruction layers and in two ceramic assemblages. During the period in question, the geomagnetic field in this region was extremely anomalous with rapid changes and high-intensity values, including spikes of more than twice the intensity of today’s field. The data are useful in the effort to pinpoint these short-term variations on the timescale, and they resolve chronological debates regarding the campaigns against the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the relationship between the two kingdoms, and their administrations.
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The direction results clearly point to a destruction by fire at Tel Nisa and Tel Zofim and securely connect the time of the magnetic acquisition to the destruction date.
“As demonstrated in Jerusalem (Vaknin et al. 2020) and at other excavated sites (Vaknin et al. 2023b(Vaknin et al. , 2022)), the direction results (Figure 3a,b) clearly point to a destruction by fire at Tel Nisa and Tel Zofim and securely connect the time of the magnetic acquisition to the destruction date.”
From Pre‐Excavation Identification and Dating of Iron Age Destruction Events (2025) · cites this paper as Vaknin et al. 2022
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Shalom, N., Vaknin, Y., Shaar, R., Ben-Yosef, E., Lipschits, O., Shalev, Y., Gadot, Y., & Boaretto, E. (2023) · Journal of Archaeological Science · doi:10.1016/j.jas.2023.105823 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationPre‐Excavation Identification and Dating of Iron Age Destruction Events
Vaknin, Y., Granot, R., Shalom, N., Buzaglo‐Yoresh, E., Keidar‐Goldberg, A., & Münger, S. (2025) · Archaeological Prospection · doi:10.1002/arp.70003 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“For the Iron Age, these datasets contain data from well-dated destruction layers (Vaknin et al. 2022).”
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- Authors
- Vaknin, Y., Shaar, R., Lipschits, O., Mazar, A., Maeir, A. M., Garfinkel, Y., Freud, L., Faust, A., Tappy, R. E., Kreimerman, I., Ganor, S., Covello-Paran, K., Sergi, O., Herzog, Z., Arav, R., Lederman, Z., Münger, S., Fantalkin, A., Gitin, S., & Ben-Yosef, E.
- Affiliations
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- Bar-Ilan University (IL)
- Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel
- Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (US)
- Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem 9100402, Israel
- Israel Antiquities Authority (IL)
- Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
- University of Nebraska at Omaha (US)
- University of Bern (CH)
- W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Vaknin, Yoav
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2022-10-24
- Volume
- 119
- Issue
- 44
- Pages
- e2209117119-e2209117119
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC9636932
- OpenAlex
- W4307187850
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 2.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern
- Funders
- EC | Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (804490)
- Israel Science Foundation (1364/15)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Keywords
- geomagnetic field intensity, geomagnetic field direction, adobe, ceramic assemblage, Southern Levant, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Judah, Assyrian conquest, Babylonian conquest, Egyptian campaign, chronology, geomagnetic anomalies
- MeSH terms
- Archaeology, Bible, Humans, Israel, Military Personnel, Artifacts, History, Ancient
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