A model of ancient Jerusalem. (Credit: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr)

(Inside Science) — In the 6th century B.C., the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, fearful that the Egyptians would cut off the Babylonian trade routes to the eastern Mediterranean region known as the Levant, invaded and laid siege to Jerusalem to block them. His army destroyed the temple the Hebrew king Solomon built there, and forced the city’s elite to exile in Babylonia.

So began the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, an event