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.
