| Jericho | ||
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| Arabic | أريحا | |
| Name Meaning | "Moon" (Canaanite,[1] Hebrew[2]), "Fragrant" (Arabic)[3] | |
| Founded in | 9000 BCE | |
| Government | City (from 1994) | |
| Also Spelled | Ariha (officially) | |
| Governorate | Jericho | |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: | |
| Population | 20,400 (2006) | |
| Jurisdiction | dunams | |
| Head of Municipality | Hassan Saleh[4] | |
Jericho (Arabic أريحا , ʼArīḥā; Hebrew יְרִיחוֹ , 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.[5] Despite the city's long history, Jericho was first mentioned in the Book of Numbers.
Jericho is believed to be the oldest continuously-inhabited city of the world,[6] and archaeologists have unearthed the remains of over 20 successive settlements there, dating back to 11,000 years ago (9000 BCE).[7]
Jericho has a population of approximately 25,000 Palestinians.[8] 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.
Jericho has been described as a "city of Palm trees" where the copious springs of both tepid and cold waters gave rise to orchards of Lemons, Oranges, Bananas, Caster Oil plants and where melons, figs and grapes were grown. The cultivation of sugar cane was introduced by the crusaders.[9]
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Jericho is believed to be one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world,[10] dating back to 9000 BCE Jericho is where Bacchides is said to have built one of his fortresses (1 Macc 9:50). Later, Ptolemy was made governor of the Jordan Valley and the area was the scene of the massacre of Simon and his sons (1 Macc 16:1117).[11]
The first developments of Jericho probably took place in the days of John Hyrcanus I and included the construction of a long well-built water channel to carry water from the Wadi Qelt springs to the city as well as a royal estate and the first phase of a winter palace. Herod the Great later managed to build three independent palaces which ultimately functioned as one at the same site. In ca. 30 BCE, control of Jericho was taken from Herod and transferred to Queen Cleopatra of Egypt.[12] The dramatic murder of Aristobulus III in a swimming pool at Jericho, as told by the Roman historian Josephus, took place during a banquet organized by Herod's Hasmonean mother-in-law. The city, since the construction of its palaces, functioned not only as an agricultural center and as a crossroad, but as a winter resort for Jerusalem's aristocracy.[11]
The Christian Bible states that Jesus passed through Jericho where he healed two blind men and converted a local tax collector named Zacharias. Christianity took hold in the city during the Byzantine era and a domed church dedicated to Saint Eliseus was erected there.[11]
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.
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.[13]
After Hamas assaulted a neighborhood in Gaza mostly populated by the Fatah-aligned Hilles clan in response to their attack on Hamas which killed five of its members and a little girl, the Hilles clan was relocated to Jericho on 4 August 2008.[14]
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.
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.
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 BCE, virtually at the very beginning of the Holocene epoch in geologic history.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, 8350 BCE to 7370 BCE. 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.[15] The 2000-3000 dwellers[16] (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.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, 7220 BCE to 5850 BCE (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 included 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. There were also querns, hammerstones, a few ground-stone axes made of greenstone. Other discovered items 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 BCE, 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.
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 BCE 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).[17].
Kenyon and other archeologists (e.g Garstang and Wood) agree in a destruction of the walls of Jericho near the end of the Bronze Age, however there is no agreement in the precise date. The archeologist Bryant G. Wood wrote "My dating of the destruction of Jericho to ca. 1400 BCE is based on pottery, which, in turn, is based on Egyptian chronology. Jericho is just one example of the discrepancy between historical and C14 dates for the second millennium B.C. C14 dates are consistently 100–150 years earlier than historical dates."[18]
An ancient synagogue was discovered in Jericho in 1936, 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, and it was partially destroyed.
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.[19]
Jericho is mentioned over 70 times in the Old Testament. 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).
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[20], 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 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 New Testament 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 story of the Good Samaritan (the experience is not 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.
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