Horse Industry City: Eighth-Century BCE Megiddo

The article deals with Stratum IVA at Megiddo, dated to the early Iron IIB, in the first half of the eighth century BCE. This layer yielded the biggest concentration of monuments in a city belonging to the Northern Kingdom. First, its construction and destruction dates are dealt with, and then the main monuments: the four-entry gate, water system, administration building with a sector devoted to cult, and the two systems of three-aisle longitudinal pillared building. The construction date and the function of the latter structures had been disputed. It is now clear that they belong to Stratum IVA and that they indeed served as stables, as first suggested in the 1920s. The number of units at Megiddo points to a developed industry, which probably specialized in breading horses and training them as war animals. This was among the most important economic ventures of the kingdom.