Megiddo, Tell El Mutesellim, is in the Plain of Esdraelon, often thought to be the Armageddon of Revelation 16:16. Megiddo guarded the caravan route from Gaza in the south to Damascus in the north, strategic for the movement of goods and armies. Near here, Deborah and Barak won a great battle (Judges 5:19, 20), Gideon defeated the Midianites (Judges 6:33), and Saul died in battle (1 Samuel 31). Today Megiddo is only a tell, ruins of many periods of history in different layers. It was excavated by the Oriental Institute of Chicago, starting in 1925. Excavated ruins of a royal tomb, originally domed, and built beneath the palace of Canaanite kings in the 14th-13th centuries B. C.

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