ARMAGEDDON FIELD

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1931, Page 5

ARMAGEDDON FIELD

BOUGHT FOR £7OO.

AN EXPLORATION PURCHASE.

The purchase of Armageddon, the ancient site of the battle mentioned in the Old Testament as Megiddo, and 13 acres on the side of the adjacent Mount Carmel, for archaelogical exploration for the nominal sum of £7OO, was disclosed to the New York Times recently. Dr. Breasted, who is a leading authority on ancifent civilisation, stated that the area was acquired work of the Palestine expedition of the Oriental Institute and declared that ah archaeologist’s “treasure house” lay hidden' in Mount Carmel and beneath the expedition’s present excavation levels, Where in the past five years the famous stables of King Soloman have been unearthed. It was at Megiddo, now Armageddon, on the Plain of Esdraelon, near the south-east end of Mount Carmel, that the army of Necho, King of Egypt, overwhelmed Josiah, King of Judah, about GOO B.C. About 2500 years later, Lord Allenby, commander of the British forces in the Near East during the World War, duplicated a feat of the Egyptians by Vanquishing a Turkish army at the same strategically strong pass through Mount Carmel ridge near Armageddon. The Story of the acquisition of rights of tenancy at Armageddon, as related by Dr. Breasted, parallels for foresight the purchase of Manhattan Island by Peter Minuit 314 years ago from the redskins for £5. . . During the first five years of digging in the pie-shaped segment of the site of Armageddon by the University of Chicago expedition funds supplied by John D. Rockefeller, jun., to defray the expenses of the exploring party were used to lease at considerable cost the necessary land from native farmers, the supposed owners. When the time came for the renewal of the high-priced leases, Dr. Breasted said, an investigation of the titles to the land by Mr. P. L. O. Guy, field director of the Palestine expedition, revealed that the ownership of Armageddon and the desired 13 acres atop Mount Carmel really rested with the 90-year-old widow of’Lawrence Oliphant, an American woman living in the South of England. , Visiting Mrs. Oliphant, Mr. Guy found her surprised at learning that she was the owner of the famous Armageddon battlefield, but willing to sell it,