Everything about Jericho totally explained
Jericho (
Arabic,
ʼArīḥā;
Hebrew,
Standard Yəriḥo Tiberian Yərîḫô /
Yərîḥô;
Greek Ἱεριχώ) is a town in the
West Bank of the
Palestinian territories, located within the
Jericho Governorate, near the
Jordan River. Its name may be derived from the word meaning "moon" in Hebrew and Canaanite, as the city was an early center of worship for lunar deities. Despite the city's long history, Jericho was first mentioned in the
Book of Numbers.
Jericho is believed to be one of the
oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, and archaeologists have unearthed the remains of over 20 successive settlements there, dating back to 11,000 years ago (9000 BC).
Jericho has a population of approximately 25,000
Palestinians. The current mayor is Hassan Saleh, a former lawyer.
Three separate settlements have existed at or near the current location for more than 11,000 years. The position is on an east-west route north of the
Dead Sea.
The first
archaeological excavations of the site were made by
Charles Warren in 1868.
Ernst Sellin and
Carl Watzinger excavated Tell es-Sultan and Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq between 1907-1909 and in 1911
John Garstang excavated between 1930 and 1936. Extensive investigations using more modern techniques were made by
Kathleen Kenyon between 1952 and 1958. Lorenzo Nigro and Nicolo Marchetti conducted a limited excavation in 1997. Later that same year, Dr.
Bryant Wood also made a visit to the site to verify the findings of the earlier 1997 team.
Archaeology
Tell es-Sultan
The earliest settlement was located at the present-day Tell es-Sultan (or Sultan's Hill), a couple of kilometers from the current city. In
Arabic and in Hebrew,
tell means "mound" -- consecutive layers of habitation built up a mound over time, as is common for ancient settlements in the
Middle East and
Anatolia. Jericho is the
type site of the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPN A) and B.
The habitation has been classed into several phases:
Natufian
Epipaleolithic — construction at the site apparently began before the invention of
agriculture, with construction of stone of the
Natufian culture structures beginning earlier than 9000 BC, virtually at the very beginning of the
Holocene epoch in geologic history.
PPN A
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, 8350 BC to 7370 BC. Sometimes it's called
Sultanian. The site is a
40,000 square
metre settlement surrounded by a
stone wall, with a stone tower in the centre of one wall. This is so far the oldest wall ever to be discovered, thus suggesting some kind of social organization. The town contained round mud-brick houses, yet no street planning. The 2000-3000 dwellers (population weighed to the former value) used domesticated
emmer wheat,
barley and
pulses and hunted wild animals. The true population of Jericho during the PPN A period is still under debate.
PPN B
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, 7220 BC to 5850 BC (but
carbon-14-dates are few and early). Expanded range of domesticated plants. Possible domestication of
sheep. Apparent
cult involving the preservation of human skulls, with facial features reconstructed from
plaster and eyes set with shells in some cases.
After the PPN A settlement-phase there was a settlement hiatus of several centuries, then the PPN B settlement was founded on the eroded surface of the
tell. The architecture consisted of rectilinear buildings made of mudbricks on stone foundations. The mudbricks were loaf-shaped with deep thumb prints to facilitate bounding. No building has been excavated in its entirety. Normally, several rooms cluster around a central courtyard. There is one big room (6.5 x 4 m and 7 x 3 m) with internal divisions, the rest are small, presumably used for storage. The rooms have red or pinkish
terrazzo-floors made of lime. Some impressions of mats made of reeds or rushes have been preserved. The courtyards have clay floors.
Kathleen Kenyon interpreted one building as a
shrine. It contained a niche in the wall. A chipped pillar of volcanic stone that was found nearby might have fit into this niche.
The dead were buried under the floors or in the rubble fill of abandoned buildings. There are several collective burials. Not all the skeletons are completely articulated, which may point to a time of exposure before burial. A
skull cache contained seven skulls. The jaws were removed and the faces covered with plaster;
cowries were used as eyes. A total of ten skulls were found. Modelled skulls were found in
Tell Ramad and
Beisamoun as well.
Other finds
- Flints: arrowheads (tanged or side-notched), finely denticulated sickle-blades, burins, scrapers, a few tranchet axes. 1% obsidian, Ciftlik and green obsidian from unknown source.
- Ground stone: querns, hammerstones, a few ground-stone axes made of greenstone. Dishes and bowls carved from soft limestone. Spindle whorls made of stone and maybe loom weights.
- Bone Tools: Spatulae and drills
- Stylised anthropomorphic plaster figures, almost life-size
- Anthropomorphic and theriomorphic clay figurines
- Shell and malachite beads
Pottery Neolithic A and B
In the late 4th millennium BC, Jericho was occupied during Neolithic 2 and the general character of the remains on the site link it culturally with Neolithic 2 sites in the West Syrian and Middle Euphrates groups. There are the characteristic rectilinear mud-brick buildings and plaster floors.
Bronze age
During the Middle Bronze Age Jericho was a small prominent city of the
Kna'an region, reaching its greatest Bronze Age extent in the period from 1700 to 1550 BC. It seems to have reflected the greater urbanization in the area at that time, and has been linked to the rise of the
Maryannu, a class of chariot-using aristocrats linked to the rise of the
Mitannite state to the north. Kathleen Kenyon reported “...the Middle Bronze Age is perhaps the most prosperous in the whole history of Kna'an. ... The defenses ... belong to a fairly advanced date in that period” and there was “a massive stone revetment... part of a complex system” of defenses (pp.213-218).
Walls of Jericho
The
Biblical account of the
destruction of Jericho is found in the
Book of Joshua. The Bible describes the destruction as having proceeded from the actions of
Joshua, Moses' successor.
The Exodus is usually dated to the 13th century BC (based on
Ussherian calculation) − according to interpretation of archaeological evidence from the
Merneptah Stele. That was followed by new settlements in the next century. At that time the Pharaoh of Egypt would have been
Ramses II. Alternatively, the exodus is dated to the 15th century BC according to a prevailing Christian reckoning of biblical chronology, which is synchronized with several ancient calendars with astronomical observation. At that time the Pharaoh would have been
Thutmose III (1490-1430). Neither biblical chronology matches the popular interpretation of the archaeological evidence at Jericho.
Joshua instructs his spies to "Go, view the Land, especially Jericho" לכו ראו את-הארץ ואת-יריחו(Joshua 2:1). Archaeologist
Kathleen Kenyon commented that this order "is an illustration of the position of Jericho in the age-long process of penetration by nomads and seminomads from the desert area in the east into the fertile coastal lands," due to the town's position in the Jordan valley at the foot of a passage through the Judean hills to the west.
A destruction of Jericho's walls dates archaeologically to around 1550 BC in the 16th century BC at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, by a siege or an earthquake in the context of a burn layer, called City IV destruction. Opinions differ as to whether they're the walls referred to in the Bible. According to one biblical chronology, the Israelites destroyed Jericho after its walls fell out around 1407 BC: the end of the 15th century. Originally,
John Garstang's excavation in the 1930s dated Jericho's destruction to around 1400 BC, in confirmation, but like much early
biblical archaeology, his work became criticised for using the Bible to interpret the evidence rather than letting the facts on the ground draw their own conclusions.
Kathleen Kenyon's excavation in the 1950s redated it to around 1550 BC, a date that most archaeologists support. In 1990,
Bryant Wood critiqued Kenyon's work after her field notes became fully available. Observing ambiguities and relying on the only available carbon dating of the burn layer, which yielded a date of 1410 BC plus or minus 40 years, Wood dated the destruction to this carbon dating, confirming Garstang and the biblical chronology. Unfortunately, this carbon date was itself the result of faulty calibration. In 1995, Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht used high-precision radiocarbon dating for eighteen samples from Jericho, including six samples of charred cereal grains from the burn layer, and overall dated the destruction to an average 1562 BC add or subtract 38 years. Kenyon's date of around 1550 BC is widely accepted based on this methodology of dating. Notably, many other Canaanite cities were destroyed around this time.
If the dates of certain schools of archaeology are to be accepted, then scholars who link these walls to the biblical account must explain how the Israelites arrived around 1550 BC but settled four centuries later and devise a new biblical chronology that corresponds. The current opinion of many archaeologists is in stark contradiction to the biblical account.
The widespread destructions of the 16th century BC are often linked with the expulsion of the
Hyksos from Egypt around this time. The 1st-century historian
Josephus, in
Against Apion, identified the Exodus of Israelites according to the Bible as the Expulsion of the Hyksos according to the Egyptian texts.
A few scholars follow the controversial
new chronology of
David Rohl, which postulates that the entire mainstream Egyptian chronology is 300 years misplaced; with the consequence that, among other things, the
exodus would be dated to the 16th or 17th century BC, and hence the
archaeological record on Jericho would be much more aligned with the biblical account. Despite this, a number of literalist Christians, most prominently the respected Egyptologist
Kenneth Kitchen, have vehemently attacked Rohl's chronology, since it introduces a number of other problems and issues (such as identifying the biblical
Shishak as Ramses II, rather than the far more obviously named
Shoshenq).
Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq
A later settlement spanned the
Hellenistic,
New Testament, and
Islamic periods, leaving mounds located at Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq, 2 km west of modern Ariha.
Synagogues
Shalom Al Israel, or "peace unto Israel", after the central Hebrew motto in its mosaic floor. It was controlled by Israel after the 1967
Six Day War, but after the handover to
Palestinian Authority control per the
Oslo Accords, and especially during the
Al-Aqsa Intifada it has been a source of conflict, and it was partially destroyed by Palestinian forces during the latter.
The ancient Na'aran synagogue was discovered on the northern outskirts of Jericho in 1918. While less is known of it than Shalom Al Israel, it has a larger mosaic and is in similar condition.
Biblical references
Jericho is mentioned over 70 times in the
Old Testament. Here are some examples:
Prior to Moses' death, God is described as showing him the Promised Land in the Book of Deuteronomy with Jericho as a point of reference: "And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that's over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, even Gilead as far as Dan".(Deuteronomy 34:1
). The word "Jericho" also happens to be the final word in the entire Book of Numbers.
The Book of Joshua describes the famous siege of Jericho, claiming that it was circled seven times by the ancient Children of Israel until its walls came tumbling down, after which Joshua cursed the city: "And Joshua charged the people with an oath at that time, saying: 'Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city, even Jericho; with the loss of his first-born shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it'". (Joshua 6:26). According to the First Book of Kings, centuries later, a man named Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho- and just as Joshua had foretold, he lost his eldest and youngest sons as a result. (1 Kings 16:34)
The Book of Jeremiah describes the end of the Judean king Zedekiah when he's captured in the area of Jericho: "But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and when they'd taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he gave judgment upon him." (Jeremiah 39:5).
Jericho is also mentioned several times in the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Hebrews. For example:
According to Matthew 20:29-30, Jesus healed two blind men as he and his disciples were leaving Jericho.
In Mark 10:46-52, Mark tells the same story, except he only mentions one of the men, Bartimaeus.
Like Mark, Luke only mentions one man, but he differs in his account by saying that Jesus and his apostles were approaching Jericho. Some versions reconcile this by translating it as "near".
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author mentions the Old Testament story of the destruction of Jericho as an outward display of faith. (Hebrews 11:30)
In the story of the Good Samaritan (the experience isn't told by Jesus as a parable, but as a narrative; Luke 10:30), Jesus mentions that a certain man was on his way to Jericho.
Recent history
The present city was captured from Jordan by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 along with the rest of the West Bank. It was one of the first cities handed over to Palestinian Authority control in 1994, in accordance with the Oslo accords, which saw construction of the Oasis casino. The other city handed over to the Palestinians was Gaza. Jericho was re-occupied by Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada of 2001.
Jericho prison siege
On March 14, 2006, the Israel Defense Forces took captive six inmates from a Jericho prison following a 10-hour siege. Israel's reason for the siege was to capture PFLP general secretary, Ahmad Sa'adat and five other inmates for the alleged assassination of Israeli tourist minister Rehavam Zeevi because of announcements of their upcoming release. Both sides of the siege were armed and at least two people were killed and 35 wounded in the incident. Before the siege British and American monitors were guarding the prison but withdrew, citing lax security arrangements. The siege caused an uproar amongst the PFLP members and supporters as well as other PLO factions, and as a result Palestinian militants raided and kidnapped British and European citizens in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The event is considered controversial and somewhat hampered Palestinian relations with the UK and US.
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