Reconstruction of Building 338; Herbert May Collection, Oberlin College
Megiddo’s Stables: Trading Egyptian Horses to the Assyrian Empire
Megiddo was a major Israelite city that was transformed into a horse training center, with large stables and arenas where the palaces once stood. Scholars once attributed these stables to Solomon, but they are actually from the 8th century B.C.E., built by Jeroboam II to provide war horses to the Assyrian Empire.
Published: September 3, 2019
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
Another city in the valley with similar strategic placement was Jezreel. See discussion in, Norma Franklin, “Jezreel: A Military City and the Location of Jehu’s Coup,” TheTorah.com (2017).
The basis for this identification appears in Gottlieb Schumacher, Tell el-Mutesellim, Vol 1. (Leipzig: Haupt, 1908).
For the entire text in English, with commentary, see Mordechai Cogan, The Raging Torrent: Historical Inscriptions from Assyrian and Babylonia Relating to Ancient Israel, 2nd updated and expanded edition, A Carta Handbook (Jerusalem: Carta, 2015) 13–22, [repr. of 2008]. The English above is from this translation (pp. 14–16).
Some scholars have expressed doubt about this number. For instance, Mordechai Cogan (The Raging Torrent, 20–21) suggests it is a scribal error for “200.” Nevertheless, Deborah Cantrell makes a strong case for the accuracy of the number here. See Deborah O’Daniel Cantrell, The Horsemen of Israel: Horses and Chariotry in Monarchic Israel, History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011).
In fact, his equestrian knowledge was put to practical use during World War II when, serving as a Colonel in the British army, he was placed in charge of the Horse Stud Farm in Akko.
See Deborah O’Daniel Cantrell, The Horsemen of Israel: Horses and Chariotry in Monarchic Israel, History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011).
Each stable unit housed multiple horses; as these stables were for chariot horses, living in close proximity was part of their training.
See Cantrell, The Horsemen of Israel, 44–46; Stephanie Dalley, “Foreign Chariotry and Cavalry in the Armies of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II,” Iraq 47 (1985): 31–48 [31, 46].
Cogan, The Raging Torrent, 39–44 [p. 40]. This same conquest is described in the Saba’a Stele, which survived in a much more fragmentary form. See Cogan, The Raging Torrent, 44–46.
This can be deduced when the biblical record (2 Kgs 14:25, 28) is read together with the Rima and Sab’a stelae.
See Shawn Z. Aster, “Israelite Embassies to Assyria in the First Half of the Eighth Century,” Biblica 97: 175–198 [p. 189].
For a discussion of what the city was like in the previous stratum, before it was redesigned for horses, see Norma Franklin, “Revealing Stratum V at Megiddo” BASOR 342 (2006): 95–111.
Before this, in Stratum V, the short cubit of .45 m was utilized. See Norma Franklin, “Trademarks of the Omride Builders?” in Bene Israel: Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Honour of Israel Finkelstein, ed. Alexander Fantalkin and Assaf Yassur-Landau; Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 31 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 45–54.
Geoffrey Turner, “Tell Nebi Yūnus: The ekal māšarti of Nineveh,” Iraq 32.1 (1970): 68–85 [ 85 ].
Megiddo is mentioned in an Assyrian text (SAA 11.2 [=ADD 919]) in the same line as other cities that we know to have been seats for a resident rab-kāri. See Shigeo Yamada, “Kārus on the Frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,” Orient 40 (2005) 56–90 [80–81]; Frederick M. Fales, and J. Nicholas Postgate, Imperial Administration Records, Part 2: Provincial and Military Administration; State Archives of Assyria 11 (Helsinki: Helskini University Press, 1995).
This article is based upon my, “Entering the Arena: The Megiddo Stables Reconsidered,” in Rethinking Israel Studies in the History and Archaeology of Ancient Israel in Honor of Israel Finkelstein, ed. Oded Lipschits, Yuval Gadot, and Matthew J. Adam (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2017), 87-101. For an up-to-date book length treatment of Megiddo, see David Ussishkin, Megiddo-Armageddon: The Story of the Canaanite And Israelite City (Jerusalem/Washington D.C.: Israel Exploration Society/Biblical Archaeology Society, 2018); Eric H. Cline, Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon& (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming).
