<i>(Sergio) There is a place
sitting atop of the Judean foothills</i> <i>that, for the past few years,
had been dug by archaeologists</i> <i>of the Ariel University.</i> <i>At first glance,</i> <i>this place seems to be
just a simple, ancient town.</i> <i>But when they started digging,</i> <i>they found something
much more than just that.</i> <i>They found giant fortification walls,</i> <i>massive gates, and a layer
of destruction that dates back </i> <i>a whole millennia before Christ.</i> <i>Wait. Are all those jars?
Are those the vessels?</i> <i>(Prof. Itzhaq Shai) Those are from
the 10th century BCE,</i> <i>so it's almost 3,000 years ago.</i> <i>(Sergio) So, what was this place?</i> <i>Why did they construct these giant walls?</i> <i>Why did they need fortification
on top of this hill?</i> <i>And more importantly,
why was it destroyed?</i> <i>To answer these questions,</i> <i>Rhoda and I are en route to the site
to meet with the archaeological team.</i> ♪ (music) ♪ <i>- (Nicole on speaker phone) Hey. Hello?
- (Sergio) Hello.</i> <i>(Nicole) Hi. How are you?</i> Yeah. Hi, Nicole.
Good. How are you? <i>(Nicole) Good, thanks.
Are you guys here?</i> Yes. We just arrived and we thought, maybe we could make it up
with our own car. <i>It's a bit high, but I'm not sure.</i> <i>There's a gate and it's locked.</i> <i>(Nicole) So, the gate that's there,
you could open it.</i> <i>There's a little lasso that's on there.</i> - Okay.<i>
- (Nicole) All right?</i> <i>You just open it up, and then
just make sure you close it afterwards</i> <i>so that the cows stay.</i> <i>(Sergio) All right.
How is the road?</i> Is it terrible or... <i>(Nicole) It's a mix.
It's a mix.</i> <i>(Sergio) Okay. All right.
We'll give it a try. We'll give it a try.</i> <i>(Nicole) I'm glad you guys are here.</i> We're excited.
We'll see you up there. <i>(Nicole) All right.
I'll see you in a second.</i> - Bye-bye.<i>
- (Nicole) Bye-bye.</i> All right. So, there's the gate
that she said that I need to open. <i>Oh wow, it's hot.</i> All right. All right. Let's give this a try. <i>It's gonna be quite rough
over here in the beginning.</i> <i>(Rhoda) Uh-huh. And we have to also
close it back, right?</i> <i>(Sergio) Yeah. All right.</i> Perfect. <i>Okay. We made this part.</i> <i>All right. There we go.</i> <i>(Rhoda) Oh, there was somebody hiking down.</i> Yeah. So she said,
you either want to hike it or make it on the 4 x 4 car. <i>So, I'm not sure we'll be able
to make it in our car.</i> <i>(Rhoda) We don't want to hike it,</i> and we don't have a 4 x 4 car. ♪ (music) ♪ <i>(Sergio) All right. We're doing good.
We're doing good.</i> <i>Okay. It's not that bad
at all actually, so far.</i> <i>(Rhoda) Not so far.</i> I think the higher you get,
the rougher it's gonna get. <i>I'll tell you what, though.
I really am enjoying this.</i> <i>(Rhoda) I bet you are.</i> - Oh!<i>
- (Rhoda) Oh gosh, babe.</i> Phew. Golly! <i>There we go.</i> - We're almost here.<i>
- (Rhoda) Oh gosh.</i> Whoo-hoo! There we go. <i>- (Rhoda) Oh my.</i>
- We made it. <i>- (Sergio) Hello. Hey!
- (Nicole) Hey, you guys!</i> <i>(Nicole) If you want to squeeze in
right here where everyone is.</i> <i>Worst case, you'll move the car
if someone needs it.</i> - All right. Sounds good.<i>
- (Rhoda) Okay.</i> ♪ (music) ♪ - That was quite the ride.<i>
- (Sergio) All right.</i> All right. Let's go meet
the chief archaeologist. Wow. <i>- Hello, Itzhaq.</i>
- Welcome. Welcome. Thank you so much for having us here. Welcome, and thank you for coming. We're excited. Would you like to see
a little bit about the biblical Libnah? - Yes. Yes, please.
- Okay. So let's go. <i>(Sergio) While we're walking to the site,
here is a little background.</i> <i>Tel Burna is an archaeological site</i> believed to be the biblical Libnah, the very Libnah that is mentioned
17 times in the Hebrew Bible, beginning with its capture by Joshua when the Israelites
entered the promised land. <i>This city would have been located
in the territory of Judah,</i> <i>and it is only 15 miles from Jerusalem.</i> <i>And, according to the Bible,
it was a designated city of the Levites.</i> Now, an interesting character
comes from this place. A woman. Her name is Hamutal. And the Bible says she is the daughter
of Jeremiah of Libnah. But more than that,
she is the wife of King Josiah. <i>(Prof. Shai) Her name was Hamutal,</i> <i>the daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah.</i> - Whoa.
- Now, since, probably, he didn't meet her in the bar or somewhere in the cinema... it's a political marriage. And the reason that he took
someone from here is because he wanted this site to be loyal to the capital and to the royal family. <i>(Sergio) So now, we have
this connection between this place</i> <i>and a very famous king, King Josiah.</i> This is the same king who took the throne <i>when he was only eight years of age.</i> <i>This is the king who wholeheartedly
followed the Lord.</i> <i>He took down the high places.</i> <i>He stirred the people's hearts to follow God.</i> <i>In fact, he did so much that when he died,</i> <i>it says that Jeremiah lamented for him</i> and the people sang lamentations
for this special king. <i>Wow. What a history.
That is incredible.</i> <i>And you are excavating this right now?</i> <i>(Prof. Shai) Yeah.
Now, you have to see this</i> <i>because in a few minutes
you won't be able.</i> <i>You can see here smashed,
complete vessels in situ.</i> <i>(Sergio) No way!</i> <i>So, it happens to be
that Rhoda and I arrived here</i> <i>on the very last day
of their dig for the season,</i> which is actually a good thing for us because, by now,
they've dug to a very deep level, <i>and we get to see a layer of destruction</i> of very high magnitude. And, this is this, for example... Aaron, show them. Show them. This is the roof that smashed this vessel. So it fell down and smashed
the complete storage jar <i>that you can see there.</i> <i>(Sergio) What they are finding here
is complete carnage.</i> <i>Pottery vessels smashed, still in situ,</i> dating back to 3,000 years ago. <i>Wait. Are all those jars,
Are those the vessels?</i> <i>(Prof. Shai) Those are from
the 10th century BCE,</i> <i>so it's almost 3,000 years ago.</i> <i>Here, come.</i> You can see complete, smashed vessels. <i>(Sergio) And you just found that?</i> <i>- (Prof. Shai) Yeah.
- (Sergio) That's...</i> That's unbelievable. <i>But it's not only that the pottery vessels
are smashed here.</i> <i>They're also finding a thick layer of ash</i> and even burnt botanical remains. - Did you see what they just found?<i>
- (Rhoda) What did they find?</i> <i>(Sergio) You're finding actual seeds here?</i> <i>- (Prof. Shai) Yeah.
So, you can see.</i> <i>- This is a lentil.
- (Sergio) Wow, I see it.</i> <i>And they're dating to--</i> <i>(Prof. Shai) Iron Age biblical.
Yeah. Yeah.</i> <i>So, let's say, this is more or less,
if we take the Bible,</i> this is more or less the time
of Rehoboam, King of Judah. So the question remains: Who could have caused
this level of destruction, and why? The destruction, as I said,
it's late 10th century BCE, which may, I'm not sure,
relate to Shishak, Shishak, King of Egypt,
also mentioned in the Bible. <i>(Sergio) So, while the name
of the one who has caused this</i> is not exactly written in stone,
the timing of the destruction seems to match the event
described in the Bible: <i>when Shishak, King of Egypt,
came to destroy Jerusalem,</i> <i>which is just a few miles away.</i> <i>And this is not the only
layer of destruction they're finding.</i> <i>They've also previously found
a layer of destruction</i> <i>dating to the 8th century,</i> to the time of King Hezekiah. <i>According to the Bible,</i> <i>the King of Assyria comes to this land,
and he tries to capture Jerusalem.</i> <i>And on his way, he has this campaign
of capturing every other city in Judah.</i> <i>And then it says
he went to fight against Libnah.</i> <i>And this is the same story
that God mentions</i> <i>that Hezekiah cries out to the Lord</i> <i>and then the Lord destroys
185,000 Assyrian soldiers</i> <i>in a single night.</i> <i>It's kind of mind-boggling to think:</i> all of these events happened
in this vicinity. <i>(Prof. Shai) This is
the fortification wall.</i> <i>And, just here...</i> <i>you have the gate.</i> <i>(Sergio) The size of the fortification
is really astonishing.</i> <i>I mean, if you look at
this place from above,</i> <i>you can see how far
the walls actually stretch.</i> <i>(Prof. Shai) I believe this is
only the inner gate.</i> And I believe that the outer gate
should be a little bit more to the south. <i>(Sergio) It makes me ask the question:</i> <i>Why was this place so important
that both Egyptians</i> and the Assyrians attacked it? <i>To answer some of these questions,</i> <i>the archaeological team is using
the latest available technology</i> <i>to scan the site.</i> <i>One of such is photogrammetry.</i> Photogrammetry is a process
of taking still images of an object from multiple angles and then loading those images
onto a computer that uses machine learning algorithm
to process the images and convert them into a 3D model. <i>So, we had a chance
to meet with Benjamin Yang,</i> <i>the winner of a 2015 Biblical
Archaeology Society scholarship</i> <i>and a long-time staff member at the site.</i> <i>Benjamin operates expensive equipment
to perform the scanning.</i> - Photogrammetry.<i>
- (Sergio) Photo... photogrammetry.</i> - Yes.<i>
- (Sergio) And tell us, what is that?</i> It's, actually, just take a lot of photos and use software to combine
all the photos together and produce the 3D image. <i>(Sergio) You're taking photos
with this camera, regular photos,</i> <i>and then you put them in a computer
and convert them into 3D models</i> <i>of this entire site.</i> - The whole site, yes.<i>
- (Sergio) That is incredible.</i> Yeah. If you want,
I can send you the image. <i>(Sergio) That would something now</i> because then our viewers
would be able to tell what it looks like in 3D. Exactly. <i>(Sergio) The 3D model
reveals an unusual finding.</i> <i>A casemate fortification
that has inner walls</i> <i>which appear to be significantly larger
than any other site.</i> This is a casemate wall. A casemate wall is based on
two parallel walls. This is the outer wall,
and this is the inner wall, <i>and, in between,
small walls that connect them.</i> <i>And you get all kinds of small rooms,</i> - like this one.
- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. <i>(Prof. Shai) And this is
what we call a casemate.</i> <i>- Each room is a casemate.
- (Sergio) Okay.</i> It's typical to the Iron Age. And if you visited, for example,
a Khirbet Qeiyafa... Yeah. you can see this type
of fortification wall. What is interesting and unique
to this place is two issues. One, it stands for more than 3 meters. <i>Second, the walls
that connect the two walls,</i> as you can see, it's very massive. <i>(Sergio) Massive walls
3 meters or 9 feet tall.</i> <i>Could it be that they had
built this fortification</i> <i>because they had been attacked before?</i> <i>Or perhaps there is a more important reason.</i> Usually, it's much smaller.
But here... and I don't know how to explain it,
at least not yet, it is very, very massive. Wow. It does look huge. <i>But the answers
to all of these puzzling questions</i> might actually lie
in the location of this place. <i>- You can see it from here?
- (Prof. Shai) Yeah.</i> <i>- You see the flat hill?
- (Sergio) Yeah.</i> <i>(Prof. Shai) This is Maresha.
- (Sergio) Wow.</i> - You can see there's a hill just next to--
- Yeah. <i>(Prof. Shai) This is Tell es-Safi / Gath.</i> <i>- (Sergio) Wow! How close.
- (Prof. Shai) And this is Goded.</i> You are going to Goded. - You see the two peaks?
- Yeah. - This is Goded. Yeah.
- That's it? <i>(Prof. Shai) Go a little bit to the right,
you will see a hill with one tree.</i> - Yeah.
- This is Lachish. Wow. It looks like this place is positioned
in a very strategic location. <i>I mean, on a clear day,
you could probably see the shore,</i> <i>the Mediterranean Sea, Ashdod, Gaza.</i> <i>And on the other side, you've got Hebron.</i> <i>So, from on top of this hill
you've got 360-degree views</i> <i>of all the surrounding Judean Hills.</i> The location is just in between
Philistine Gath and the main Judah Center
in the Shephelah, Lachish. And this is the story of this place. <i>(Sergio) While the strategic
location of this place</i> <i>seems to be the obvious answer
to these massive walls...</i> <i>but perhaps there lies a greater reason.</i> Okay. I have a million dollar question. So, at the site down there,
where you have the destruction layer that dates to the older period... did you say it goes as far back
as the 10th century BCE? Yes. Any chance that King David
ever visited this place? First, what we have there,
it's late 10th century BCE. So, as I said, it's not even Solomon. If we take the biblical narrative, it's, let's say, Rehoboam
or something like this. Okay, it's Rehoboam. What was earlier than that, then? - We don't know yet.
- Okay. We don't know. We didn't reach. But, as I said before,
we have a late Bronze Age temple, so this is 14th century BCE. Whoa. And here... I don't know. We will dig and we will see. <i>(Sergio) So, could it be
that the reason for these massive walls,</i> <i>the fortifications and all
of the destructions still lie buried</i> deeper in the ground? Maybe. But since this is the last day of the dig, we'll have to wait until next season
when the team comes back <i>and perhaps discovers
even greater ancient secrets.</i> <i>Okay. Wow.
This is exciting.</i> So that means that we
need to come back next season and see what you guys find. - Yeah, we will be here.
- Oh, awesome. Wow. Well, thank you so much. - Thank you.
- Thank you for coming. Thank you. <i>The ancient secrets
buried beneath these grounds</i> <i>tell a story from Joshua's conquests</i> <i>to King Hezekiah's reform.</i> <i>This city has seen many wars.</i> <i>And as we depart,
we keep thinking how, at first,</i> <i> this place just seemed like
an ordinary, ancient site.</i> <i>But, as the team digs deeper,
mysteries are being unveiled.</i> <i>And, yet, questions still remain.</i> <i>What else lies underneath these ruins?</i> Hey, guys. So, we really hope
you enjoy this Libnah episode: Tel Burna. We were fascinated just to be here
and hear everything that's been found, the process, and we can't wait to come back here,
hopefully next year, and see what else they find
if they go down even deeper, maybe to the time of Solomon. - Yeah. King David. Yeah.
- Maybe to the time of King David. - And this was such a surprise, wasn't it?
- Yeah. We had just come here
to meet the archaeologist, to ask him about other locations
because it's his expertise. And, yet, this place fell into our laps,
and we were, like, okay, we're here. - We gotta film this. We gotta show this.
- Yeah. Because you read about Libnah
in the Bible. You read it already from the days of Joshua
and the division of the land, and it's just amazing to see it's here. Yeah. So, we really hope you enjoy this, guys,
and we hope to see you next time. - Until then, God bless you.
- And the best is yet to come. Amen. By the way, guys, this is Nicole,
and she made it all happen. - Thank you so much for inviting us here.
- Thank you guys for coming! - It's exciting.
- It's exciting. We love you at Ariel University
when you come visit us. - Thank you so much.
- Oh... okay. Yay! We've been up since 4:00
in the morning, okay?
