Indication that the Temple of Solomon and the Jews exiled to Babylon may be correctly dated to 587 BC. The Ten Tribes had already been exiled for several generations by the time of the Temple’s destruction. Judea would have been a backwater with few Jews present by the time of Herodotus.
Some of the controversy is because there is traditional Jewish dating of the Temple to 422 BC, which would have meant notable Jewish presence in the time of Herodotus.
Histories, book II: EuterpeThere can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race... I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times... the Syrians who dwell about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macronians, say that they have recently adopted it from the Colchians... I will add a further proof to the identity of the Egyptians and the Colchians. These two nations weave their linen in exactly the same way, and this is a way entirely unknown to the rest of the world; they also in their whole mode of life and in their language resemble one another. The Colchian linen is called by the Greeks Sardinian, while that which comes from Egypt is known as Egyptian.
by Herodotus
translation by George Rawlinson
transcription by Daniel C. Stevenson
The tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrians to three places; Halah (Khalakh), the confluence of the river Gozan and the cities of the Medes. The first two places are beyond the mountains of the Caucasus. Khalakh, of which it is some-times said that its location is unknown (Graetz) was Colchis, the south-eastern coast land of the Black Sea. To Colchis Jason sent the legendary Argonaut expedition to bring back the Golden Fleece.
A Jewish community lives there from ancient times, claiming descent from the exiled Ten Tribes. Also in the Georgian mountains live Mountain Jews with ancient customs, also claiming descent from the Ten Tribes. See about them Ben-Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed.
Caspian Sea comes from the Hebrew word caspi, or silvery. Rostov from Rosh Tov (good estuary), Don from Dan, also Donai (possibly also Dnieper and Dniester) all to memory of Dan, the holy city of the Ten Tribes. A large number of the Israelites were exiled by Sargon II over the Caucasian mountains to Southern Russia.
Khalakh | Immanuel Velikovsky