A 3,000-year-old glass head deepens one of the Bible’s oldest mysteries

Buried under a pair of hills at Israel's northern border, at the nexus of three ancient kingdoms, is one of the last large biblical sites yet to be uncovered. So said an international team of archaeologists after they started to dig up the ruins of Abel Beth Maacah five years ago.

The lost town is also one of the more enigmatic places mentioned in the Old Testament.

As legend had it, the archaeologists wrote, Abel Beth Maacah was a fortified crossroads connecting the kingdoms of Israel, Damascus and Tyre, and “perhaps the seat of a local oracle.” It's unclear to which king the town was loyal, they wrote — or whether it belonged to a possibly mythical fourth kingdom called Maacah.

Only a few stories about the town are told in the Bible, and all of them are more tantalizing than illuminating for scientists who want to know what Abel Beth Maacah actually was.