759 BC Earthquake: Jerusalem, Israel

excerpts from reference #9116:

c. 759 BC. Modern writers date the earthquake to 759 BC and assign to it a very large magnitude of ML( sic .) 8.2, with an intensity in Jerusalem between VIII and IX (Ben-Menahem 1979, 262; Austin et al . 2000). In addition, the event is said to have been associated with the coseismic left-lateral offset of the Jericho fault, which is a segment of the north–south trending strike–slip Dead Sea fault (Nur and Ron 1996) [...] There is no direct or indirect evidence that Jerusalem was damaged [...] Modern writers have suggested that archaeological evidence points to at least 20 sites in Judaea and Israel that were destroyed by the same earthquake, although it is not possible to confirm this. The chief problem is the identification of the cause of the destruction at these sites, which are scattered in a north–south direction from Tel Hazor in the north to Tel Batash in the south, a distance of 350 km, and from the Mediterranean coast to the east side of the Dead Sea fault zone, that is, within an area of about 100km radius. Archaeological reports give little or no technical justification to support the conclusion that damage was due to earthquake [...] Stratigraphic control did not consider or discuss the possibility that the observed damage was the result of later earthquakes [...] The available tectonic and geological evidence suggests [...] the occurrence of a large landslide, perhaps triggered by an earthquake [...] The date of this earthquake is very uncertain [...] there are no means today of assessing its location and magnitude.

Reference #1225:

759 BC, 33 N 35.5 E, Maximum intensity 11, Intensity at Jerusalem MM = 8.