Paleomagnetic archaeology

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Archaeologists Reconstruct Biblical Conflicts Using Earth’s Magnetic Field. Israel is full of ancient ruins, but who destroyed what and when? Earth’s magnetic field is helping researchers identify remains of wars described in the Bible (Ariel David, Haaretz).

Questions over the dating of ancient sites in the Levant are not purely academic. They lie at the heart of the longstanding debate over fact and fiction in the Bible.

Now a new scientific technique based on information from the Earth’s ever-changing magnetic field is helping archaeologists date their finds and reconstruct biblical conflicts that occurred in the Iron Age – that is the period that goes from the 12th to the sixth century B.C.E. and spans the rise and fall of the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

For more on the the use of archaeomagnetic dating in Israel, see here.

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