About Jericho (Source: Wikipedia)

Jericho (Arabic: أريحا‎) is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate, and has a population of over 20,000 Palestinians.[2] Situated well below sea level on an east-west route 16 kilometers (10 mi) north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently inhabited site on earth. It is also believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world.

Described in the Hebrew Bible as the "City of Palm Trees", copious springs in and around Jericho have made it an attractive site for human habitation for thousands of years.[6] It is known in Judeo-Christian tradition as the place of the Israelites' return from bondage in Egypt, led by Joshua, the successor to Moses. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of over 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back to 11,000 years ago (9000 BC).

Etymology

Jericho's name is pronounced by its local Palestinian inhabitants Ariha (Arabic ArJericho.ogg أريحا (help·info)), which means "fragrant" and derives from the Canaanite (as well as Arabic and Hebrew) word Reah, of the same meaning. Jericho is also pronounced Yəriḥo (He-Jericho.ogg יְרִיחוֹ (help·info)) in Hebrew, and an alternate theory holds that it is it derived from the word meaning "moon" (Yareah) in Canaanite and Hebrew, as the city was an early center of worship for lunar deities.

Geography

Jericho is located 258 meters (846 ft) below sea level in an oasis in Wadi Qelt in the Jordan Valley.The nearby spring of Ein es-Sultan produces 1,000 gallons of water per minute, irrigating some 2,500 acres (10.1 km²) through multiple channels and feeding into the Jordan River, 6 miles (10 km) away. Annual rainfall is 6.4 inches (162.6 mm), mostly concentrated between November and February. The average temperature is 59 ℉ (15 ℃) in January and 88 ℉ (31.1 ℃) in August. The constant sunshine, rich alluvial soil, and abundant water from the spring have always made Jericho an attractive place for settlement.

Demographics

Demographics have varied widely depending on the dominant ethnic group and rule in the region over the past three thousand years. In a 1945 land and population survey by Sami Hadawi, 3,010 inhabitants is the figure given for Jericho, of which 94% were Arab and 170 were Jews.

In the first census carried out by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), in 1997, Jericho's population was 14,674. Palestinian refugees constituted a significant 43.6% of the residents or 6,393 people. The gender make-up of the city was 51% male and 49% female. Jericho has a young population, with nearly half (49.2%) of the inhabitants being under the age of 20. People between the ages of 20 and 44 made up 36.2% of the population, 10.7% between the ages of 45 and 64, and 3.6% were over the age of 64.

Based on PCBS projections, Jericho presently has an Arab Palestinian population of over 20,000.The current mayor is Hassan Saleh, a former lawyer.

Biblical references

Jericho is mentioned over 70 times in the Hebrew Bible. Prior to Moses' death, God is described as showing him the Promised Land in the Torah's fifth book, 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).

The Book of Joshua describes the famous battle of Jericho, stating 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). "The people raised the war cry, the trumpets sounded. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, they raised a mighty war cry and the wall collapsed then and there. At once the people stormed the city, each man going straight forward; and the captured the city. They enforced the curse of destruction on everyone in the city; men and women, young and old, including the oxen, the sheep, and the donkeys, slaughtering them all. -- Joshua 6:20-21" 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 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." (Jeremiah 39:5).

Jericho is also mentioned several times in the Christian Bible's books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Hebrews. 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 Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus mentions that a certain man was on his way to Jericho.

Archaeology

The first 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, and 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.

1. 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 for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPN A) and B periods.

2. Stone Age

Epipaleolithic—construction at the site appears to predate the invention of agriculture, with the construction of Natufian culture structures beginning earlier than 9000 BC, the very beginning of the Holocene epoch in geologic history.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (8350–7370 BC); Sometimes it is 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.The identity and number of the inhabitants of Jericho during the PPN A period is still under debate, though it is known that had domesticated emmer wheat, barley and pulses and hunted wild animals.

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 × 4 m and 7 × 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 included flints, such as arrowheads (tanged or side-notched), finely denticulated sickle-blades, burins, scrapers, a few tranchet axes. 1% obsidian, Ciftlik and green obsidian from an unknown source. There were also querns, hammerstones, a few ground-stone axes made of greenstone. Other items discovered there included dishes and bowls carved from soft limestone, spindle whorls made of stone and maybe loom weights, spatulae and drills, stylised anthropomorphic plaster figures, almost life-size, anthropomorphic and theriomorphic clay figurines, shell and malachite beads.

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.

3. Bronze Age

During the Middle Bronze Age Jericho was a small prominent city of the Canaan 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). Bronze-age Jericho fell in the 16th century at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the calibrated carbon remains from its City-IV destruction layer dating to at least 100 BC.

4. Synagogues

A synagogue dating to the late 6th or early 7th century CE was discovered in Jericho in 1936, and was named 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, especially during the Al-Aqsa Intifada it has been a source of conflict.

The Na'aran synagogue, another Byzantine era construction, 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.