Oriental Institute. University of Chicago

Evidence that Solomon built Biblical Megiddo’s huge six-chambered gate. In this original excavation photograph of one room of the gateway, taken in 1937, the chalk floor along the left wall laps up onto the lowest course of ashlars. This is clear evidence that the gate walls were constructed before the floor was laid. The scholars agree that this floor dates from the 10th-century B.C. Solomonic city. If Ahab had built the wall in the 9th century B.C., as Ussishkin proposes, we should see a clear disjuncture where the wall would have cut the earlier pavement. Fargo concludes that Solomon built the gate wall and then laid the pavement against it.