Jericho
|
Near central Jericho, November 1996 |
For other meanings of the word Jericho, see: Jericho (disambiguation)Jericho (
Arabic ;
ʼArīḥā;
Hebrew ;
Standard Hebrew Yəriḥo;
Tiberian Hebrew Yərîḫô,
Yərîḥô,
Greek Ίεριχώ = Ίερή ηχώ,
Hier" "chō - Holy echo) is a town in the
West Bank, near the
Jordan River. Jericho has a population of approximately 19,000.[
1] It is believed by some to be the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the world. The current mayor of Jericho is Hassan Saleh.
The present city was captured by
Israel after the
Six-Day War in 1967. It was the first city handed over to
Palestinian Authority control in 1994, in accordance with the
Oslo accords. After a period of Israeli reoccupation, it was returned to the Palestinian Authority on
16 March 2005.
Casino
On September 16, 1998, a medium-sized
casino (35
tables (later increased several times) and 220
slot machines) and
hotel (220 rooms), jointly called
Oasis, were opened on the southern outskirts of Jericho. Owned by the
Palestine Investment Fund, as well as foreign investors including
Austrian financier
Martin Shlaff and
South African financier
Cyril Kern, and operated by
Casinos Austria, the project was the largest private employer in the West Bank with over 1000 local and foreign workers (mainly
croupiers). The casino/hotel was supposed to be the first stage of the
Jericho Resort Village including a convention center, golf course, a cultural activities center and a cable car to the
Mount of Temptation.
For the few years of its existence, it attracted mainly Israeli gamblers. After the outbreak of the
Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, Oasis continued to operate with many Israeli gamblers still coming to gamble with the assurance of the Palestinian government for safety of patrons. Soon after, militants used the high-rise hotel to fire on
Israeli Army forces who returned fire damaging the structure. The Palestinian forces abandoned the site and the damage was repaired. A lull in the violence allowed speculation of a reopening, the construction on the widening expansion to
Route 1 was also renewed in anticipation, but the casino/hotel, still a prominent landmark, have since remained idle.
Hamas, who originally opposed the opening of the casino, refuses to reopen it while heading the Palestinian government.[
2]
Jericho prison
On
March 14,
2006, the
Israel Defense Forces took captive six inmates from a Jericho prison following a 10-hour siege. The IDF said the reason for taking the prisoners, who were wanted for participation in the assassination of Israeli tourism minister
Rehavam Zeevi, was to keep them from being released. Both sides of the siege were armed and at least two people were killed and 35 wounded in the incident.
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.
Tell es-Sultan
The earliest settlement was located at the present-day Tell es-Sultan (or Tell Sultan), a couple of kilometers from the current city. In
Arabic,
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.
PPN A
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, 8350 BC to 7370 BC. Sometimes called
Sultanien. A 40,000 square
metre settlement surrounded by a stone wall, with a stone tower in the centre of one wall.Round mud-brick houses. Use of domesticated
emmer wheat,
barley and
pulses and hunting of wild animals.
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, the face covered with plaster,
cowries were used for eyes. All in all, 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
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 rectilinear mud-brick buildings and plaster floors.
Bronze age
Many of the Canaanite cities were destroyed during 16th century BC at the end of the Middle
Bronze Age, and such traces have been found in Jericho by three different excavations. There are also archaeological signs of a wall around the city with a stone outer revetment but primarily built of mud brick. The exact sequence and dating of these remains is difficult and highly debated.
John Garstang working in the 1930s concluded that the city had been destroyed in around 1400, after which it had been left uninhabited. Significantly he suggested that the walls could have been destroyed by an earthquake.
Kathleen Kenyon noted 15 different destructive episodes in the Bronze Age remains. She disagreed with Garstang's dating, and dated the destruction he had found close on 1000 years earlier. She did find a much later destruction but concluded it was circa 1550. From 1550 to about 1200 the site was virtually a ghost town and even after 1200 it was inhabited for some time on a modest scale. Kenyon's conclusions while by no means undisputed are the current orthodoxy among archeologist's.
The
Biblical account of its destruction is found in the
Book of Joshua. The Bible describes the destruction as having proceeded from the actions of
Joshua, Moses' successor. Biblical researchers who use Scriptural genealogies to date the
exodus to the 16th or 15th century BC see this as significant support for the veracity of the record, and a landmark in the
Biblical archaeology corpus. Other scholars see a contradiction between history and the biblical text in this area, as the earliest known Israelite settlements do not appear until ca.1230 BC, long after Jericho's walls had already been destroyed. Indeed some archeologists such as
Bill Dever are scathing about the historicity of Joshua's capture: "...if you want a miracle, here's your miracle: Joshua destroyed a city that wasn't even there".
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 er-Riha.
Jericho is mentioned in the Jewish
Hebrew Bible (the Christian
Old Testament), over 70 times. 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 is over against
Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, even Gilead as far as Dan" (Deuteronomy 34:1). [
3]
 |
The walls of Jericho crumble as the priest blows his horn in this illustration from a 14th century Icelandic manuscript. |
*The
Book of Joshua describes the famous
siege of Jericho, when it was circled seven times by the ancient
Children of Israel until its walls came tumbling down [
4], 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).
*The
Book of Jeremiah describes the end of the Judean king
Zedekiah when he is 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 had taken him, they brought him up to
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he gave judgment upon him." [
5] (Jeremiah 39:5).
*
History of ancient Israel and Judah*
History of pottery in the Southern Levant*
*
*
Jericho Municipality Official Website*
Ancient Jericho (Tell Sultan)*
Resources on Biblical Archaeology*
Archaelogical History of Jericho
