Around 585 b.c., scavenging birds and burial details work the ridgelines east of the Dead Sea. The air carries the heavy smell of decaying flesh and charred wood across the ravines. On the basalt slopes of the central mountain range, laborers stack discarded timber and dig mass trenches under a relentless desert sun.
Gog, a northern warlord, leads an invading coalition onto the highlands of Israel. The Sovereign Lord strikes the laminated bow from his left hand and shatters the iron-tipped arrows in his right hand, scattering the invaders across open fields. Surviving locals face an immediate logistical crisis of disease and ritual defilement from thousands of abandoned corpses. For seven months, dedicated work crews bury the carcasses in a valley east of the sea to restore Levitical purity to the soil. Regularly hired search parties patrol the dirt roads, erecting stone markers beside exposed bones so gravediggers can haul the remains to the burial trenches.
The vast surplus of captured ash shields, composite bows, war clubs, and wooden spears converts the battlefield into an expansive timber yard. In an arid region where firewood demands grueling daily labor, seven years of domestic fuel sit seasoned and ready for the hearth. A catastrophic military invasion dissolves into firewood and soil nourishment for the target population.
Even the heaviest war machine ends up as fuel for a cooking fire when the winter wind sets in.
The cleanup left a marked graveyard along the eastern trade routes and stripped the weaponry from northern tribes. The soil absorbed the wreckage, and the salvaged timber kept hearths warm through seven winters.