2600-Year-Old Archeological Discovery Shows Biblical Passage To Be True

A new archaeological discovery Friday reportedly confirms the bible passage that depicts Jerusalem's destruction by Babylon is factual, according to Yahoo! News. Archaeologists on an excavation in Jerusalem discovered burned artifacts that date back to 2,600 years.

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have conducted research on their findings for four months, but they placed their focus on the eastern slope of the City of David. The burned artifacts included charred wood, pottery, fish scales, grape seeds and bones.

The damaged findings display evidence of the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, which can be found in 2 Kings 25, verses eight through ten. This section of the bible described how Jerusalem houses were burned down.

"Now on the seventh day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire."

Dr. Joe Uziel, a director of the IAA, talked about the damaged artifacts that seemingly provide evidence of the event in a video posted to the organization's YouTube channel. The archaeologists examined the artifacts to "understand better the days leading up to and the actual event of the destruction."

"These seals are characteristic of the end of the First Temple Period and were used for the administrative system that developed towards the end of the Judean dynasty," Uziel said in the video. "Classifying objects facilitated controlling, overseeing, collecting, marketing and storing crop yields. The rosette, in essence, replaced the 'For the King' seal used in the earlier administrative system."

Another thing IAA archaeologists learned from their findings is that the destruction of buildings didn't happen during a single event. Instead, some buildings also appear to have been abandoned by citizens.

At the dig site, IAA found a small ivory statue of a woman, which they claim is a very rare discovery. The statue woman is naked and her haircut is depicted in a famous Egyptian style. The team claims that the carving "attests to the high caliber of the artifacts' artistic level and the skill par excellence of the artists during this era."

Ortal Chalaf, another director of the IAA, claims that findings also prove that the destruction expands beyond the walls of Jerusalem.

"The excavation's findings show that Jerusalem had extended beyond the line of the city wall before its destruction. The row of structures exposed in the excavations is located outside beyond the city wall that would have constituted the eastern border of the city during this period," Chalaf said in the video's description. "Throughout the Iron Age, Jerusalem underwent constant growth, expressed both in the construction of numerous city walls and the fact that the city later spread beyond them."

Chalaf added, "Excavations carried out in the past in the area of the Jewish Quarter have shown how the growth of the population at the end of the 8th Century BCE led the annexation of the western area of Jerusalem. In the current excavation, we may suggest that following the westward expansion of the city, structures were built outside of the wall’s border on the east as well."

IAA is still working to better understand some of the team's findings.