71

The Plain of Esdraelon stretched out before them, a patchwork of green and fertile fields punctuated by small woods and clumps of trees. The road snaked away from Har Megiddo towards the lower slopes of a range of hills that rose in waves towards the distant horizon, gradually vanishing in the heat haze.

Bronson followed the road signs, written in Hebrew and English, and turned north from the Megiddo junction on to road number 66. After a couple of minutes, he made a left turn, and almost immediately swung left again. He slotted the Renault into a vacant space in the car park at the foot of the hill and switched off the engine.

For a few moments he and Angela just sat there in silence, staring up at the craggy slope that rose above them.

'It's big,' Bronson said.

'I told you the area of the city extended to about fifteen acres.'

'I know. Fifteen acres doesn't sound that huge when you just say it,' Bronson replied, 'but when you see something like this in the flesh it's a bit daunting. Are you sure you know where we should start looking?'

'Yes. There's only one source of water here, and the entrance to the tunnel that leads to it is now one of the biggest structures on the site. All the garrisons stationed here through the millennia had the same problem, just as they did at Jerusalem – the only reliable source of water lay outside the walls of the fortress. And in both cases, they did exactly the same thing: they dug an underground tunnel direct to the water source.'

'Right,' Bronson said. 'We're not getting anywhere sitting down here in the car talking about it. Let's go and take a look.'

Off to one side of the car park was a low building that housed the museum and visitors' centre.

'Let's have a look around there first,' Bronson suggested, glancing at his watch. 'We've got plenty of time before the place closes.'

The museum was quite informative, with numerous displays showing different sections of the site and an impressive model of how Megiddo would probably have looked in ancient times. By the time they walked out of the building, they both had a much better idea of the layout of the ruins, and Bronson had bought a guide-book in English that contained a detailed map of the entire site.

They followed the footpath that led to the entrance located on the northern side of the hill, and then started to climb, almost immediately surrounded by ancient masonry.

'According to this book,' Bronson said, pointing to an ancient structure lying to the right of the path, 'those are the ruins of a fifteenth-century-BC gate, and just around this corner we should see the main entrance to the fortress, what's called Solomon's Gate.'

The gateway was in fairly good condition, built with massive stones and obviously designed to withstand not just attack by enemy forces, but also the ravages of time. There were three chambers located to the side of the gate, again in quite a good state of preservation.

'Each of these chambers,' Bronson pointed out, again referring to the guide-book, 'was designed to hold an armoured chariot and two horses, presumably so that they could quickly sweep down on to the plain and sort out any trouble. A bit like a modern police squad car, I suppose.'

They turned left, following a well-trodden path, and walked past Ahab's stables – though to Bronson the remains didn't look much like any kind of stables he'd ever seen, just a tumbledown collection of low walls and fallen masonry – and on to a viewpoint that offered a spectacular vista looking north over the Jezreel Plain towards the town of Nazareth, which nestled in the hills of Galilee.

They stopped near a large, almost circular, structure, approached by a flight of about half a dozen steps on one side. Angela took the guide-book from Bronson and pointed. 'This is the circular altar that was renovated – not built, but renovated – over four thousand years ago,' she said. 'It was probably used for animal sacrifices. That temple' – she gestured towards another pile of tumbled masonry – 'was built at about the same time. It's called the Eastern Temple, and when it was constructed it would have consisted of a vestibule, a main chamber and the Holy of Holies at the rear, which was the closest part of the building to the circular altar.'

She paused. 'It's phenomenal, isn't it? I can't quite believe it's all so ancient.' She looked at him, her eyes shining, her face lit with excitement, and Bronson's heart gave a lurch. 'It's different for you, I realize that. Your life and work are absolutely contemporary, but I live and breathe for this kind of thing, and I can't just walk past something as interesting as this.'

She took his hand, and they walked together towards the southern section of the old city.

'Now that is really impressive,' Bronson said, walking over to a circular metal railing that enclosed a vast pit, and peering down into the shadowy depths. It looked as if it was some forty or fifty feet in diameter and about the same in depth, a huge hole dug into the hard ground and lined with stones. It must have been a massive undertaking. 'Is this the cistern?' he asked.

'No. This is Jeroboam's Silo. It dates from the eighth century BC and was used to store grain. Apparently it held about thirteen thousand bushels.'

'And a bushel is what?'

'It's a unit of dry volume – it's more or less equivalent to eight gallons. You see the double staircase?'

Bronson looked again, then saw what Angela was pointing at. Forming a part of the stone wall itself were two rough staircases, each apparently little more than a couple of feet wide, that spiralled from the top of the silo all the way down to the base, starting on opposite sides of the structure.

'I suppose they built two staircases so that workers carrying or collecting grain could walk down one and then up the other, all at the same time?' Bronson suggested.

Angela nodded, looking down into the silo.

'I wouldn't fancy walking down there myself. They're both pretty narrow, and it's quite a long drop to the bottom,' Bronson added.

'Hence the steel fence.' Angela stepped back.

The silo was the most complete section of the ruins they'd seen so far, and was surrounded by the shapes of ancient buildings, now reduced to dwarf walls little more than a foot or so high. Palm trees – date palms, Bronson guessed – grew from what would have originally been the floors of rooms or perhaps passageways. And everywhere, the tumble of light grey, almost white, masonry conveyed the unmistakable impression of age, of almost too many years to comprehend. He was aware of Angela shivering slightly, despite the heat. He put his arm lightly round her shoulders, and they moved on.

'Over here are what used to be thought of as Solomon's Stables,' Angela said. 'But the dating's been revised and it's now believed they were probably built at the time of Ahab, possibly on the site of the palace of Solomon. Ahab was the King of Israel in the ninth century BC, and it's been estimated that the stables could have held nearly five hundred horses, and accommodated the war chariots as well. At that time, Megiddo was known as the "Chariot City", and chariots would have been the decisive weapon in any skirmish or battle on the plains below. They were the armoured shock troops of the day.'

She looked around her. 'OK, we follow this path down to the south-west. That should take us to the start of the tunnel that leads to the cistern.'

'When does the tunnel date from?' Bronson asked, as they started walking.

'Originally it was thought it might have been built as long ago as the thirteenth century BC, but more recent research has dated it fairly conclusively to the ninth century BC which makes it –' she paused while she did the maths, '– almost three thousand years old.' She looked up and smiled at Bronson.

'So the water supply was outside the city walls?'

'Yes. The water source was a spring in a cave over there,' Angela said, pointing ahead of them. 'When Solomon ruled here, he ordered his men to cut a shaft through the walls of the cave to give easier access to the spring, but that wouldn't have helped if Megiddo was under siege. Ahab was a lot more ambitious. He had a wide shaft constructed, which meant digging down through all the underlying levels here at the top of the hill, and then further down into the bedrock itself. The shaft finished up at around two hundred feet deep, and then the real work started. His men dug a horizontal tunnel through the rock to the cave, a distance of almost four hundred feet, which provided them with hidden and impregnable access to the spring. As a finishing touch, Ahab had the original mouth of the cave blocked by a massive stone wall, and then had the wall covered with earth, so that a potential enemy wouldn't even know there was a cave there.'

While Angela had been talking, they'd reached the edge of the entrance shaft, a huge hole in the ground with sloping sides, so massive that it made the grain silo appear totally insignificant by comparison. Unlike the silo, this structure appeared never to have been completely stonelined, simply because there was no need to do so, but the remains of various supporting walls and terraces were visible all the way down to the flat bottom. The crumbling remains of an old stone staircase descended the side of the pit where the slope was gentlest, though to Bronson it still looked as if it would have been an exhausting climb up for the defenders of the city, especially if they were burdened with pitchers of water.

There was a steel safety barrier fitted on the top of a low stone wall that ran around most of the perimeter. In one section there was a break allowing access to a new staircase, made of concrete and fitted with safety rails and a succession of level platforms to break up the descent, which allowed tourists to get safely down to the bottom.

'It's still quite a climb,' Angela said, 'nearly two hundred steps, but at least we only have to go down. They've created an exit at the other end, through the wall that Ahab built three millennia ago.'

Bronson looked around them. It was now late afternoon and the last groups of tourists were beginning to make their way back to the exit.

'We're going to have to leave here and then lie low for a while,' he said. 'I'd better move the car out of the parking area, too, and hide it somewhere nearby. I don't want to advertise our presence here, and I think it's fair to say that the two men who tried to jump us in the hotel this morning are probably still out there looking for us.'

Angela looked concerned. 'I'm trying not to think about that,' she said. 'Let's just walk through the tunnel and see what the cistern looks like.'

The tunnel, when they reached it, was a surprise.

Bronson had been expecting something like Hezekiah's Tunnel, narrow and twisting with a low ceiling, but hopefully dry underfoot. But the Megiddo tunnel was arrow-straight, wide, tall – probably nine or ten feet in places – well lit and with a planked walkway that allowed visitors to stroll easily from one end to the other.

There was nobody else in the tunnel as they walked its length. At the far end, steps led down to the well itself. Bronson and Angela stood on the lowest platform and peered over the edge at the water below.

'It looks deep,' he said.

'It is,' Angela agreed. 'Most wells are.'

'And cold,' Bronson added with a sigh, knowing that it was he who was going to have to go down into it. 'The trick is going to be getting out afterwards. I'm glad I bought that rope.' He was silent for a few seconds as he thought this through. 'Right, we've seen what we needed to. Now let's go.'