Archaeomagnetic reconstruction of a fire in ancient Jerusalem

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Examination of ancient pottery shards reveals how a building burned during siege of Jerusalem in 586 BCE (Bob Yirka, Phys.org).

The work involved analyzing shards of pottery collected from a dig site identified as the base of an ancient two-story building. Prior researchers had named it Building 100. The team followed procedures of modern fire marshals—they wanted to know where the fire started in the building and how it progressed. To find out, they studied magnetic signals hidden in the pottery shards.

The underlying article in the Journal of Archaeological Science (Volume 157, September 2023) is behind a subscription wall, but you can read excerpts at the link:

Destruction by fire: Reconstructing the evidence of the 586 BCE Babylonian destruction in a monumental building in Jerusalem

N. Shalom, Y. Vaknin, R. Shaar, E. Ben-Yosef, O. Lipschits, Y. Shalev, Y. Gadot, E. Boaretto

Abstract

Evidence of fire is one of the most important features for identifying and characterizing destruction events. Analysis of microscopic remains of fire has developed exceedingly in recent years, enabling archaeologists to examine new questions relating to the intensity of destruction events and to the circumstances of the creation of destruction layers. One of the most crucial events in the history of the Southern Levant is the Babylonian destruction of Judah and its capital Jerusalem in 586 BCE, which shaped the biblical narrative and theology for generations to come. Building 100 was an extraordinarily large and rich elite building, thoroughly destroyed during the Babylonian campaign. This paper presents a study of the destruction layer excavated within the rooms of the building. FTIR spectrometry and archaeomagnetic analysis were combined in the micro-archaeological study of the remains in order to create a detailed reconstruction of the destruction event. This reconstruction sheds new light on how the Babylonian destruction was manifested in reality in the elite buildings of Jerusalem.

UPDATE (28 July): Joseph Lauer points me to the full text of the article, posted at Academia.edu.

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