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00:00Once upon a time, a small boy slew a giant and saved his people.
00:09The Bible says he went on to conquer Jerusalem and give the wandering Israelites a home.
00:15His son Solomon the Wise built them a temple, put the Ark of the Covenant in it, and filled their coffers with wealth.
00:24David and Solomon made Israel a nation.
00:27Were they historical figures or mere legends?
00:31After 3,000 years, can any trace of these biblical giants survive?
00:36From Israel to Egypt, from Syria to Jordan, follow the intriguing trail of evidence in search of the lost kings of Israel.
00:56It's a story familiar to most of us.
00:58The ultimate saga of the underdog.
01:013,000 years ago, in the dusty valley of Garth, the inexperienced army of the Israelites stood face to face against the mighty Philistine army.
01:10For hundreds of years, the story of the Israelites had been one of sorrow and wandering, slavery and flight into wilderness.
01:23But that was about to change.
01:24The battle-hardened Philistine warriors were ready to wreak havoc.
01:35Their 10-foot champion, their 10-foot champion, Goliath, called for a single combat to decide the battle.
01:41No one dared step forward until a young boy took up his slingshot, a stone, and his courage, and fired.
01:56He stunned the giant.
01:57And when Goliath fell to the ground, David triumphantly cut off Goliath's head with his own sword.
02:05It was David who went on to conquer Jerusalem and give the Jews a home at last.
02:11Two hundred years of wandering and fighting since the Exodus were over.
02:18According to the Bible, his son Solomon was no less extraordinary.
02:28He famously showed his wisdom when two mothers appeared before him, each claiming the same baby as hers.
02:37Solomon ordered a knife to be pointed at the baby.
02:41One of the women pleaded with him to spare the child, even if the other got the baby.
02:47Solomon judged her to be the real mother.
02:52He strengthened his father's kingdom, built the legendary temple, and made it the centerpiece of the Jewish religion.
03:04Without David and Solomon, there would be no Jewish land.
03:10David and Solomon are very important figures in Israelite history, especially David.
03:15He plays such an important role in the later traditions of Judah and Israel, and much later even Christian traditions.
03:24David is revered not just by the Jewish people.
03:29Jesus traces himself back to King David through his mother Mary,
03:33and Muslims revere David and Solomon as holy prophets.
03:37The legends of David and Solomon run like golden threads through the texts of three monotheistic religions.
03:44So the question of whether they lived or not is no small matter to millions of people today.
04:00Skeptics have dismissed the stories as just that, stories.
04:06To begin an investigation into the reality of David and Solomon, one first has to know when exactly they might have lived.
04:13Fortunately, on this matter, there is a great deal of scholarly consensus.
04:20If David and Solomon existed, it would have been in the 10th century BCE.
04:25This is something that every scholar agrees upon.
04:28Everything else they argue about.
04:30But when they lived, if they lived, it would have been the 10th century BCE.
04:34Archaeologists have been digging for more than a hundred years in Jerusalem, searching for any solid evidence from the 10th century.
04:42However small, that David and Solomon actually existed.
04:46When we are asked, we archaeologists, what have we found from the 10th century BCE, that is, the days of David and Solomon in Jerusalem,
04:56have to be honest, very, very little.
04:59But lack of physical evidence is not proof that David and Solomon were merely mythological figures.
05:05One of the reasons why archaeologists have come up empty-handed is because this ancient city is the epicenter of one of the world's most brutal and long-standing land disputes.
05:19Any quest to seek out the past gets caught up in the politics of the present.
05:30But that's not the only problem.
05:33Jerusalem is one of the cradles of civilization, continuously occupied for thousands of years, raised and rebuilt many times.
05:44Can we really expect to find any clues to David and Solomon in a city that has had so many makeovers since their time?
05:52There is one place in this amazing city that has been relatively untouched.
05:57And it is underground.
05:59Here in the oldest part of the city, known as the City of David,
06:03archaeologist Ronnie Reich may have found an intriguing confirmation of a biblical story of David.
06:09According to the Book of Samuel, David used an ancient tunnel or gutter system to lay siege to the city of Jerusalem, which was ruled by his enemies, the Jebusites.
06:28And David said on that day,
06:31whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth the Jebusites, he shall be chief and captain.
06:37If indeed David has captured Jerusalem as the Old Testament tells us, then there was a huge fortification for him to overcome.
06:51And there were underground rock-cut tunnels, which he could take advantage of and find himself into the city in a clandestine way and capture it by surprise.
07:08But until recently, the only tunnel archaeologists had found was from a much later period.
07:14That you see here, coming out from the rock, from below me, are the waters of the Spring Gehon, of the biblical Spring Gehon.
07:26Today, it flows into that tunnel, which is Hezekiah's tunnel, 800 BC.
07:33800 BC, too recent, as was King Hezekiah, a descendant of King David who built this tunnel to channel water into the city.
07:42For decades, archaeologists knew only of this tunnel, but Ronnie Reich recently discovered a more ancient tunnel not far from here.
07:55The find caught the attention of archaeologists and biblical scholars.
08:02You can see it's a rock cut by man from surface down and covered with huge boulders.
08:10This is 800 BC, whereas this one is 1800 BC.
08:21Shards of pottery found among these huge boulders helped Ronnie establish that this tunnel dated to around 1800 BC.
08:28So it existed here well before David.
08:33Could this be the tunnel that David used to capture Jerusalem and make it his capital?
08:39The biblical story tells us how David captured the city, but we're not exactly sure what exactly went on.
08:47The word that is used may be described as a water tunnel.
08:52It could also be a grappling hook.
08:54It could also be a scaling ladder.
08:56We really don't know the situation.
08:58If we know the meaning of the ancient Hebrew word, and if Ronnie Reich has discovered the proper set of tunnels,
09:04then we might be able to say that the Hebrew biblical account is correct.
09:07But there are so many ifs involved that we really don't know what we can and can't say.
09:14The search for David in his own city has revealed a tunnel that might tell us of his clever tactics,
09:27but little else about David himself.
09:31It turns out that the best evidence we have for David comes not from his city or his people,
09:37but from his arch enemies.
09:51David, the Bible says, was a superb military ruler.
09:54After establishing his kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem, David led the Israelites from one victory to another in battles against his mighty neighbors.
10:04The Moabites, the Edomites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans.
10:14With this conquered land, he established the Davidic Empire that extended over both sides of the Jordan River,
10:20as far as the Mediterranean Sea, paving the way for his son Solomon to inherit a strong empire,
10:27in which for the first time it was safe to build the holy temple,
10:31and finally housed the holiest of holy relics, the Ark of the Covenant.
10:37And the greatest testament to David's importance, and as yet the most tangible clue that David was a real human made of flesh and blood,
10:53comes from an enemy king who records a victory over David's descendants on a piece of stone called the Tel Dan Stella.
11:00The Tel Dan Stella is a monumental stone inscription incised with letters.
11:12It is written in Aramaic, put up by an Aramaic king who claims that he has conquered 70 cities.
11:20And he is setting up this particular stela to commemorate this occasion.
11:29One of the conquests he claims shook biblical archaeology to its core.
11:34The six letters say Bet David.
11:41There is the Bet, and the Yud, the Taf, the Dalit, the Vav, and then again the Dalit, Bet David.
11:54These words, Bet David, when translated into English, read House of David.
12:00This is the first time the House of David, or even the name David, has been found on a non-biblical source.
12:11For all those who'd been searching for evidence of David's existence, these six letters were the ultimate find.
12:20It was clear that David was no mere tribal leader.
12:24He was the founder of a nation that lived on long after his own death.
12:28The discovery of the Tel Dan Stella in 1993 and 1994 was probably the single most important discovery related to David that's ever been found.
12:39Because it's the first mention of David or the House of David outside the Bible that we've got.
12:45It shows that David or a House of David did exist.
12:52So perhaps, as the Bible says, David was a great king who led his people to victory in battle, making his kingdom both large and great.
13:00Great enough that his descendants attracted the attention of an enemy king.
13:13More fragments of David's story can be put together from evidence left behind by his other enemies.
13:18And the Philistines, one of his biggest rivals, are proving to be a rich cache of information.
13:27In fact, David's first victory, even before he became king, was against the Philistine giant, Goliath of Gath.
13:36Based on both archaeological evidence and historical sources, archaeologists like Aaron Meyer have determined that this mound is the remains of the city of Gath.
13:49We're now standing on Tel Asafi, which is a large ancient mound, which is identified as Gath of the Philistine.
14:01Gath was one of the biggest of the Philistine cities, and the Bible mentions it specifically.
14:07To have found Gath is a huge boost for archaeologists looking for evidence of biblical stories from the time of David, the 10th century BC.
14:15We have very, very impressive evidence of the Philistine Gath from the 12th, 11th, 10th and 9th century.
14:26Then there is a very substantial destruction level in which the entire city is destroyed.
14:32Although David is not credited with the destruction of the city, the Bible simply stops mentioning Gath around this time.
14:39Archaeologists previously had no explanation for why Gath had dropped off the Biblical radar screen, but now they know.
14:50Gath was no longer mentioned because it no longer existed.
14:57A Philistine city destroyed at the time of David's conquests, hometown of Goliath.
15:02Is this the proof that David existed?
15:09It's not enough for some archaeologists.
15:12Since we found the cities, including Gath, maybe we could argue that David existed as well.
15:19Alternatively, one could take the opposing view that the people writing the Bible knew the historical context,
15:24were able to write the story with convincing details and simply place David into the story.
15:31There is no way to tell which is correct.
15:34But another one of King David's famous enemies can offer more tangible clues.
15:39The Bible tells us that the kingdom of Israel spread under the control of David and his army.
15:48And one of his major military victories was over the powerful kingdom of Edom.
15:53And he put garrisons in Edom.
15:58Throughout all of Edom he put garrisons.
16:00And all they of Edom became David's servants.
16:06And the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went.
16:11Until recently, there was no evidence that the Edomites were anything but a band of nomads.
16:17And it was thought that Biblical writers merely exaggerated their stature to magnify the greatness of David's victory over them.
16:24But some believe all that changed when Jordanian archaeologist Dr. Mohamed Najjar and his colleagues started research on ancient copper producing societies in the deserts of Jordan,
16:40formerly the lands of Edom.
16:45They stumbled on evidence that the Edomites may indeed have been a power to be reckoned with.
16:49These black things here, we call them slags.
16:56Slags are mainly the waste product of copper production.
17:02From ancient times up until now, the only way to refine copper has been to heat-mined copper ore in furnaces.
17:09All that's left after the copper is extracted are these worthless black rocks.
17:21But they are an important clue to archaeologists.
17:25Judging by the amount of this black mineral dotted around the area, Najjar and his team realized that this kind of copper production must have been part of a centrally organized society.
17:35A bird's eye view of the walls confirms what the copper signifies.
17:51The signature outline of a large building, or as Dr. Najjar says, a large fortress.
17:56In fact, it's one of the largest Iron Age fortresses found anywhere in the region of Jordan, Israel and Sinai.
18:07That means that Edomite society was probably not nomadic, as was previously thought.
18:12It may have been a highly advanced and centralized society.
18:17One that could well have attracted the destructive attention of someone like King David.
18:21Radiocarbon dating shows that they may have thrived at the right time.
18:25We proved that the Edomites existed.
18:37They were here in the 12th, 11th, 10th century and 9th century.
18:44And if this is true archaeologically, if this is scientifically proven, maybe that was true that David was fighting with the Edomites in the area.
18:53But if David left his mark on Edom, we have yet to find it.
18:59As Dr. Najjar and his team continue to excavate here, maybe something in this rubble will shake the world of Biblical archaeology
19:07and provide that proverbial smoking gun of David's true power.
19:10From the adult King David, conqueror of Jerusalem, our search for clues leads us back to the young David and his most famous single act.
19:24Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
19:42Six cubits and a span is around three meters tall. A terrifying sight to the young David.
19:52We all know what happened next. David answered Goliath's challenge and slew the giant with nothing but a slingshot.
20:00For centuries, the story of a puny boy who stood up to a bully has captivated us.
20:12To believers, it's a true story of courage, determination and faith in God.
20:21To skeptics, it's merely a fable.
20:27And certainly, of all David's exploits, this one has the ring of a myth.
20:34So no one was expecting to find evidence of Goliath.
20:38But then a tiny piece of baked clay showed up.
20:42That amazed everyone, archaeologists and Biblical scholars alike.
20:47I'm holding here the Shird, the Iron Age Shird from the 10th century BCE, which was found at Telesafi in 2005.
21:03Written in the language of the early Philistines, the word etched out here would be pronounced Aulatis.
21:09Once that very name was moved and heard by a Semite, they changed the pronunciation.
21:20So instead of Aul, they pronounced Gol.
21:23To the Hebrew ear, Aulatis would have sounded like Golatis, and then been further transformed into Goliath.
21:34Does that mean that this pot shard belonged to Goliath?
21:38The Goliath of the Bible?
21:40It probably didn't belong to Goliath himself, because the shard dates to a time period slightly after he was supposed to have lived.
21:50But what it does tell archaeologists is that there were Philistines in Gath around and after the time of David,
21:57and at least one of them called himself Goliath.
21:59We have here a very nice example in which we can show that in 10th century Philistine Gath,
22:12the people who lived there, the Philistines, used names similar to the name Goliath.
22:18I think we can extrapolate from that that the biblical text describing David and Goliath
22:22seems to retain a very, very strong historical kernel of the early Philistine cultural realia.
22:32That means that this story is based on real events, real people, real historical background.
22:39But for some scholars, there's an awful lot that's wrong about the Goliath of the Bible.
22:43We cannot read this story as really a simplistic historical testimony for David in 10th century B.C.
22:53Take the armor of Goliath in the story, described in detail.
22:59He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail,
23:05and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze.
23:08And he had greaves of bronze upon his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders.
23:16And the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron.
23:25It turns out that the clothes Goliath is described as wearing are anachronistic.
23:30They didn't exist at the time.
23:37Neighboring Egyptians had encountered the Philistines as well,
23:41and their records show the Philistines in what are now considered more accurate clothes for the time.
23:45Egyptologist Ted Brock helps us interpret a battle scene engraving that shows Philistine warriors in confrontation with the Egyptians.
24:00The vivid battle scene, with soldiers on boats fighting and dying, shows what the Philistines were wearing at the time.
24:13The Philistines were wearing these feathery type of headdress.
24:23They wore some sorts of armor, probably not metal, but more likely leather.
24:30They carried round shields, and they had long tapering swords.
24:34Goliath, in fact, is described not as a 10th century or 11th or 12th century B.C. soldier,
24:47but as a heavy Greek soldiers of the 7th to 5th centuries B.C.
24:54Why is Goliath's outfit about 300 years ahead of its time?
24:58Because the people who wrote the account of David and Goliath lived 300 years later.
25:11A shard from just after the time of David indicates that there could have been Philistines named Goliath.
25:21But the clothing described in the Bible seems to be totally wrong.
25:25And what of David himself?
25:28Could his details have been similarly retrofitted to make him appear larger than life?
25:35And what about the exploits of his famous son Solomon?
25:39Did he really build the first temple?
25:42Put the Ark of the Covenant there?
25:45And take 700 wives?
25:47If it was King David who brought the Israelites to Jerusalem, it was his son Solomon who really made the city of David famous.
26:00The popular image of Solomon is unique for an ancient king.
26:04We know of him as the wise ruler, the builder of the sacred temple.
26:08But most of all, we know him for his domestic arrangements, as the keeper of 700 wives.
26:25Solomon is synonymous with peace, wisdom, wealth and grandeur.
26:30The Bible tells us he built a temple in Jerusalem and filled it with treasures, covering the inner sanctum and the altar with pure gold.
26:41His palace was filled with gold relics and his throne inlaid with ivory.
26:47He was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.
26:52But where are these treasures now?
26:59Where are the ruins of his spectacular temple?
27:02We have to admit that there is a sort of contradiction between the biblical account of these two kings and their activities,
27:11especially Solomon building so nicely described palaces, the temple itself, etc.
27:15And on the other side, we don't have these houses or these palaces found at all.
27:23We don't even have the garbage of these palaces.
27:26And for palaces, you are looking for objects of prestige.
27:30So there's a contradiction between what is written and between what is found.
27:37Did King Solomon and his empire really not leave behind any archaeological footprint?
27:42Archaeologically, whether King Solomon existed, to be fair with you, the answer, if we are strictly speaking about archaeology, the answer should be negative.
28:04But here in Jerusalem, the faithful believe that Solomon built the first temple and that it was raised and then built again.
28:12And destroyed again.
28:18These people anxiously await the time when the third incarnation of the original temple can be built.
28:24Inconveniently, where the beautiful Islamic mosque now stands.
28:33The temple, more than anything, is Solomon's most lasting legacy, in faith at least.
28:38But what about cold, hard stone?
28:41The Book of Kings is replete with details of this temple.
28:45Dressed masonry with interlaced cedar beams, quarry dressed stones, elaborate columns, rooms with carved olive wood cherubs, and an inner sanctum made of pure gold.
29:00So we are left with a very full biblical description of a glorious temple, but no physical temple on earth, in Jerusalem, or even nearby.
29:13Some people have said, according to the description of Solomon's temple, that there is no way it could have existed, it was too lavish, it was too elaborate.
29:27So the argument was that Solomon's temple was merely too magnificent to have been built and decorated in the 10th century.
29:40But in 1980, archaeologists were astounded when they found a temple from Solomon's time in Ain Dara, Syria.
29:50It proved to be a stunning parallel to Solomon's temple.
29:53These ruins were once covered with a mud brick superstructure.
30:01Though that is now lost, the facade and interior walls are carved with hundreds of reliefs depicting lions, cherubs, mythical creatures, and ornate geometric designs, just as the Bible says.
30:12The columns were then erected adjacent to the porch of the temple, one to the right, called Jaqin, and the other to the left, called Boaz.
30:27Like Solomon's temple, the Ain Dara temple was approached by a courtyard paved with flagstones.
30:33And only the bases of the two columns that would have held up the roof of the portico still stand.
30:41What we find is a temple that matches both in ornamentation and in design.
30:48We find that there are over 33 features that they share in common.
30:56Solomon cannot be credited with building the Ain Dara temple.
30:59So we can say that Solomon borrows from the cultural traditions of his region.
31:11The Temple of Solomon is not an outlandish creation of some author's imagination, but actually a temple that fits very nicely within an existing typology,
31:22that has ornamentation, and that even has a level of wealth that would be very befitting of a typical ancient Near Eastern kingdom from this period.
31:35One could also argue, though, that since the later biblical writers, if they were later, knew what temples from that period looked like,
31:43that they're simply describing a temple from a couple centuries from before their time,
31:49and saying that's what Solomon's temple looked like.
31:52Until we actually find Solomon's temple on the Temple Mount, it's going to be hard to say one way or the other.
31:58Not a single artifact from the temple has been found to date.
32:02And there may be no stone anywhere in Jerusalem that says, I am Solomon, and I was here.
32:11But there seems to be an explanation for where his fabulous treasure may have gone.
32:17Israel was sandwiched between some of the mightiest empires of the time,
32:22the Assyrians in the north and the Egyptians to the south.
32:30Several Egyptian pharaohs who marched north into Israel recorded their victories in stone.
32:37A pharaoh named Sheshonk I invaded his northern neighbor around 925 BC,
32:44a few years after Solomon's death.
32:46And it's an invasion that the Bible almost certainly recounts as well.
32:59Egyptologist Ted Brock takes us to the famous engraving that records Sheshonk's version of the story.
33:09On the outside of the hypostyle hall at Karnak Temple,
33:11we have lots of war reliefs from different periods from Ramesses II found what's of interest to us here,
33:18the triumphal scene of Sheshonk I.
33:22And what's of interest in particular because there is some possible correlation between what's commemorated here
33:29and the scripture in the Bible.
33:34According to the Bible, an Egyptian pharaoh called Shishak invaded the Israelite kingdom.
33:39Historians and archaeologists agree that Sheshak is the Hebrew name for Sheshonk.
33:42Sheshak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.
33:44And he took away the treasure of the house of the Lord.
33:46And the treasures of the king's house.
33:48He took everything.
33:49He also carried away the gold shields which Solomon had made.
33:50The puzzling thing about the relief is there's no mention of Jerusalem among the many cities Sheshak.
33:51Sheshak conquered.
33:52Sheshak conquered.
33:53But the Bible describes him right as the name of Sheshak.
33:54Sheshak.
33:55Sheshak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.
33:57And he took away the treasure of the house of the Lord.
34:00And the treasures of the king's house.
34:03He took everything.
34:04He also carried away the gold shields which Solomon had made.
34:14The puzzling thing about the relief is there's no mention of Jerusalem among the many cities Sheshak conquered.
34:19But the Bible describes him ransacking the holy city and looting the treasure of Solomon.
34:32The relief is so badly damaged that even the prominent image of the king is not preserved.
34:38All that's left is a blank space.
34:43Perhaps the conquest of Jerusalem was similarly wiped out.
34:46You have to realize that much of the inscription is broken so perhaps Jerusalem was mentioned in the broken part.
34:55But to some this explanation seems too convenient.
35:00Jerusalem is not mentioned there and Judah is not mentioned there.
35:04And I have a surprise for you.
35:06Not a single town, city or village in Judah is mentioned in that text.
35:12What it boils down to is that either Sheshak didn't attack Jerusalem and Judah in the first place.
35:20Or that he didn't bother to include them in the inscription.
35:23I think he didn't bother to include them in the inscription because Jerusalem and Judah didn't put up a fight.
35:29Fight or no fight, at least we have a plausible explanation for the missing treasure. Sheshak took it.
35:41But the Pharaoh records other Israelite cities he invaded.
35:46Some of these cities, the Bible tells us, belonged to Solomon.
35:50Three of the cities that are mentioned here were excavated.
36:01And that is Hatzor, Hatzor in Upper Galilee, Megiddo, and Gezer, which is northwest of Jerusalem.
36:08Is there evidence for Solomon in these cities?
36:13Luckily for us, Megiddo is an archaeologist's paradise.
36:17A mound that has layer upon layer of ancient cities stretching back some 6,000 years.
36:31And among the layers, archaeologists thought they found a city from Solomon's time.
36:36Well, this is the famous Solomonic gate, quote-unquote,
36:41which for many years was one of the symbols of Solomonic grandeur.
36:46And this gate was identified with the time of King Solomon because of one verse in the Bible,
36:521 Kings 9.15, which speaks about construction activity of King Solomon.
36:58And this is the reason of the levy which King Solomon raised, for to build the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Milo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.
37:15During his reign, Solomon is supposed to have built these sturdy six-chambered gates with the passage between them.
37:28Similar gates have been found at Hazor and Gezer.
37:37But the dating of these doesn't seem to match Solomon's gates from the Bible.
37:45Few archaeologists, in my opinion, still believe that this is a Solomonic gate.
37:52As far as I can judge, most archaeologists today would not take it as a 10th century gate.
37:59These gates, and the imperial grandeur that they once denoted, almost certainly belong to Solomon's successors.
38:06But are there other layers of civilization in these rich ruins that could belong to the time of Solomon?
38:17There is one more place in Megiddo that experts will look for the great king before returning to his Jerusalem.
38:24This is Megiddo, one of the most fabled and fought over pieces of real estate in the world.
38:39Thirty-four battles have been fought here.
38:43And the Book of Revelation tells us that the final battle of Armageddon will take place here.
38:49Armageddon literally means Hill of Megiddo.
39:00According to the Bible, King Solomon made Megiddo a royal province.
39:05But since the city was occupied well before that,
39:08archaeologists have discovered multiple levels of civilization here,
39:12making it difficult to find traces of Solomon himself.
39:14But one verse in the Bible about Solomon's obsession with horses gave archaeologists hope.
39:25And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen,
39:30and he has a thousand and four hundred chariots,
39:34and twelve thousand horsemen,
39:37whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots,
39:39and with the king at Jerusalem.
39:47The Bible tells us that Solomon built several types of cities,
39:51and among them he says,
39:53Ari Rechev, that means cities for the chariots.
40:00If Solomon had so many chariots,
40:01he'd have had immense stables to house the horses.
40:09Stables whose remains might still exist.
40:14And indeed excavators did find stables.
40:17Many stables.
40:18The stables at Megiddo were excavated in the 1920s by the team from the University of Chicago,
40:28one of the biggest excavations ever undertaken in the land of Israel.
40:33And in the 1920s the excavators made the link between the buildings which were identified as stables,
40:40and the two verses in the Bible which are not connected.
40:43They made the link between the verse speaking about Solomon as a constructor,
40:47as a builder at Megiddo,
40:49and Solomon as a great horse trader with city of chariots and horses and so on.
40:56Deborah Cantrell is an archaeologist as well as a horse trader,
41:00who has worked extensively in Megiddo.
41:01She draws parallels between an ancient horse training facility and a modern one in the United States.
41:11This is a training stable.
41:13And I believe Megiddo was a training stable,
41:16because these are performance horses.
41:18They're athletes, and they're required to perform every day,
41:21and learn their job, and learn their duty.
41:23And at Megiddo, for chariot horses, their duty was to carry the king,
41:27or to carry the army officers, or to fight in battle.
41:29Like its modern equivalent, the stables in Megiddo open directly into the training facility.
41:37One of the most important things about horse training is keeping the horse enclosed.
41:43And the training that is put into these animals made them so valuable.
41:51Trained chariot horses were the single most expensive commodity in the ancient Near East for over a thousand years.
42:00Practical evidence like the comparison of the Megiddo structures with modern stables
42:06has convinced most archaeologists that these were stables.
42:10I think that the accumulating evidence show that these are indeed stables.
42:18They may be stables, but were they Solomons?
42:28And when we dig a place like Megiddo, we have more than twenty cities like this, one on top of the other.
42:33And the question is, which one of those cities can be attributed to a certain century, to a certain king, or a ruler?
42:41In our particular subject that we discuss now, the question is, which level at Megiddo can be dated to the time of Solomon?
42:48Which to the time of his successor?
42:50Even if we know that they are stables, or even if we think that they are, we still don't know who built them.
42:57Yes, it might have been Solomon, but it could just as easily have been any one of a number of kings that followed him.
43:03So around the Holy Land, and in the inscriptions of his enemies, we see an elusive shadow of the great Solomon, but no hard evidence.
43:18But another ruin in Jerusalem has been sparking interest among archaeologists and biblical scholars looking for confirmation of Solomon's building activities.
43:26I'm standing here between two walls, which belong to two houses dating back to the seventh century BC, 2,700 years ago.
43:41Behind me, and there above, you can see a strange structure, stepped large stones.
43:50The massive amount of stones tells archaeologists that this could be the foundation of a large building.
43:56A fortress wall, or even a palace.
44:02This is the only candidate, if at all, which might be dragged chronologically into the tenth century.
44:12If indeed it was constructed in the tenth century, then historians or Bible scholars happily connected with the activities of David and Solomon in Jerusalem in that particular century.
44:26If the step stone structure does date to the tenth century BC, then it might have been part of the melo that Solomon is said to have fortified.
44:33Again, we just don't know what the step stone structure was. There's no sign saying what it was.
44:40There's no sign saying what it was.
44:43Just like we have the Tel Dan Steli for David, we need an inscription for Solomon, and we don't have that yet.
44:49And without an inscription, these are nothing more than a few questionable blocks of stone, and no definitive sign of this lost king of Israel.
45:02David, slayer of Goliath, conqueror of Jerusalem, and father of a line leading to Jesus.
45:15Solomon, builder of the first temple, wise beyond words.
45:20In Islam, these two are considered prophets as well as kings.
45:29They exist in the pages of the holy texts.
45:32Will we ever find any direct archaeological evidence for their existence?
45:37When we deal with archaeological data and with reconstruction of ancient texts,
45:40we are more often than not dealing with probabilities and not proof.
45:44The archaeologists, the scientists, are trying to ascertain exactly who they were, when they were, and how important they were.
45:56But for the faithful, that doesn't really matter.
46:05If they existed or not, it will not change history.
46:09I mean, their significance to history, their importance to history, exists anyway.
46:17David and Solomon may be so far over the horizon of history, that we will never know what they were.
46:25Great kings, tribal elders, or heroes compiled from stories handed down over the centuries.
46:34Evidence of their existence may not matter one way or another to the faithful now.
46:42But if it does turn up, it will matter to all.
46:48Thank you very much.
46:49Thank you very much.