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HOME: Bible Archaeology Ancient Buildings: Jericho Herod's Tomb King Herod the Great |
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Jericho is one of the earliest settlements in the world, dating possibly from about 9,000BC. For two thousand years a Neolithic town flourished there Jericho, but around 5000 BC urban life seemed to die out, for unknown reasons.
Joshua and Jericho The site at Jericho was later re-settled, but then in the 15th century BC, or last quarter of the 14th century BC, there is evidence of destruction and abandonment. Was this destruction linked to the Bible story? Jericho is famous as the first town attacked by the Israelites under Joshua after they crossed the Jordan River (see Joshua 6). After its destruction by the Israelites it was, according to the biblical account, abandoned and then later re-established in the 9th century BC (1 Kings 16:34). Was this evidence of the invasion of the Hebrew tribes, described in the Bible?
Hard to say, at least if you are depending on archaeological evidence. The Hebrews were semi-nomads, with little or no material culture. They were only lightly equipped with the sort of objects that survive the centuries, or that can be dug up by archaeologists. Certainly they infiltrated the area over a period of time that may have begun in the 14th century BC, but they only gradually took possession of villages and towns. When this happened, they adapted to Canaanite culture - there is no break, for example, in the production and design of pottery and domestic articles throughout this period. Moreover, Canaanite religious rituals keep popping up in Bible references - Jericho had been an early center of worship for the moon goddess and her cycles - which suggests that the Israelites were never able to completely suppress the Canaanite culture, or the people whose land they had infiltrated.
Did the walls of Jericho come tumbling down at the sound of Joshua's horn? Again, hard to say. In Joshua 2:1 he commands his soldiers to reconnoiter the city, and it is subsequently destroyed. And the walls certainly did come tumbling down. There is evidence of a collapsed stone and mud brick support wall. There is also evidence of destruction by fire. Archaeological teams have discovered a number of storage jars containing charred grain from the last Canaanite city that existed at Jericho. This seems to indicate that the city was conquered at harvest-time and then burned. This evidence matches the biblical account of Joshua 6. But it is impossible to tell whether this destruction was caused by invasion or earthquake. Possibly both occurred and both were responsible - and why not? Both were part of God's unfathomable plan for his people.
King Herod and Jericho Recent excavations revealed later buildings in Jericho from the time of Herod the Great.
A magnificent facade on Wadi al-Qult, a mile south of Old Testament Jericho, is probably part of a palace complex build by this mad, brilliant ruler. Its style is completely Roman, in keeping with Herod's admiration for all things Roman.
Traces of other fine buildings can be seen in this area. Herod had a no-expense-spared winter palace there, where he died in horrific circumstances in 4BC.
For Herod's death at Jericho and for full coverage of Jericho, its walls and fortifications, Joshua's conquest, and King Herod's luxurious Winter Palace, see The ancient city of Jericho For information on Jericho in later centuries, see Islamic Architecture See other fascinating links between 
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History of Jericho
Extract from Cornfeld, G., Pictorial Biblical Encyclopedia, 1964
In the south of the Jordan Valley, about 10 km. (6.5 miles) north-west of the Dead Sea, an oasis fed by a number of sweet-water springs marks the site of Jericho, the earliest town so far known in the world. Dating back to about 9000 BCE, it was first built a millenium or two before the appearance of farming villages in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria or in the upper Jordan Valley and elsewhere in Palestine during the 7th and 6th mill. BC. Ranking as the oldest fortified town yet known in Palestine with a record of about 5 millennia before Joshua's Conquest, Jericho's long period of existence before biblical times is of especial interest. A series of excavations showed that the site of Jericho had moved at different periods. The Canaanite and Old Testament town stood near the rich springs of Tel el-Sultan (Elisha's spring), some 4.5 miles west of the Jordan, while the Hellenistic-Roman town had shifted to Talul Abu-Alaiq, further west at the point where the canyon of Wadi el-Kelt opens out into the plain of Jericho. The later Jericho of Byzantine-Arab times stood at a third site, Ariha (modern Jericho), some 2 km. south-east of Tel el-Sultan. A number of expeditions have excavated Tel el-Sultan seeking, among other things, scientific evidence for the story of the Israelites' conquest of Jericho. The first work there was done by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1873 but it was not until the expedition led by John Garstang in 1930-31 that a coherent chronology began to emerge. Garstang's work was extended and, in places, corrected by the expedition led by Dr. Kathleen Kenyon of the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London in 1952-57. By deepening Garstang's ditch and digging another in the western part of the tel, it was possible to reach natural rock in two different places.
This showed that Garstang had mistaken a continuation of the watercourse for virgin
rock. Carbon dating could not be applied to the very lowest strata but the material which could be tested gave a date between the years 6250-5850 BC. This led Kenyon to the conclusion that the lowest strata could be dated from the 9th-8th mill. BC, that is that habitation had begun around 8000 BCE or earlier. Although pottery was unknown at the time, the first inhabitants were sufficiently well organized to plan and erect a walled city with an effective defence system. Since there is no evidence for fortified towns elsewhere before the late 4th mill BC, this established Jericho as the oldest fortified town so far known in the world as shown by the great stone tower of the pre-pottery Neolithic defences.
It is not yet clear whether there was a gap in occupation before the arrival of the Neolithic people (to whom pottery was known) or, after them, before the proto-Urban groups established themselves in Jericho. The Jericho Clay Figures and the Myth of Creation
Although the earliest inhabitants of pre-pottery Jericho did not make clay vessels, they did produce life-size human figures and images of faces modelled in clay. Dr. Kenyon discovered about ten such heads, modelled over a skull, as shown in this illustration. Parts of limbs modelled in clay over a framework of reeds or canes which formed a kind of skeleton were also found. In the opinion of Ruth Amiran, the significance of these discoveries lies in their very close conceptual relationship to the much later Creation Epics of Babylonia and Israel. Man in each case was formed of clay, in the Genesis story of the creation of Eve, around Adam's rib. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic tells how the hero Enkiddu was "built" of clay and the Hebrew story of Eve uses the same word for "build". The pre-pottery Neolithic B clay figures from Jericho appear to be a material expression of this same theme of later eastern mythologies. "There seems to be an intrinsic affinity between Near Eastern myths, according to which man was created from clay, and the clay figures and plastered skulls discovered in Jericho." (Ruth Amiran) Prehistoric Trade of Jericho The pre-pottery people who built the enormous stone walls of Jericho around the 8th Mill. BC had very little knowledge of other urban arts. They lived in temporary structures and left no evidence behind them of any great agricultural or economic advance which could explain the growth of the town. The only thing which can explain the existence and expansion of the town, in the opinion of E. Anati, is trade; trade in the salt, bitumen and possibly sulphur in which the Dead Sea was rich and which were all essential products in the ancient Near East. Salt was a necessity of life and, as the evidence shows, also very important for religious ceremonies and sacrifices as early as the Early Bronze Age (4th mill. BC; compare Job 6:6; Nu. 18:19 and Mk. 9:49). Some of the oldest trade routes of the Near East began with the traffic in salt; the Jericho people may have been the earliest to develop this trade from the Dead Sea. Bitumen was needed for fastening sickles and other flint tools to their handles, for boat-building and as a necessary raw material. Sulphur was in demand for medicines and fire-lighters. All three materials are perishable, so few traces of them have survived in the town, although evidence of trade has been found. This remains the most logical explanation for Jericho's early development. The Walls of Jericho After a gap in occupation which followed the Neolithic period, Jericho was continuously occupied all through the Early Bronze Age. The town was walled throughout this period (3100-2100
BC), although in the course of a thousand years the wall was destroyed and rebuilt 17 times. Defences were obviously a major concern of Jericho's inhabitants, for the town was very vulnerable to attack from the east. The walls were made of unbaked mud bricks and stood 16-17 metres high. This made a substantial barrier to attackers but it needed constant care to prevent water erosion and to repair the effects of During the Middle Bronze Age A (2100-1900 BC) while semi-nomadic elements lived in Palestine and intensive building activities were going on elsewhere in the country, Jericho was an open town. In the course of Middle Bronze Age B the town was fortified by a smooth earthwork and later this was replaced by smooth stone walls. These walls and the whole town were apparently destroyed when the town was occupied by the Egyptians in 1580 BC. For a century and a half the site lay abandoned but around 1400BC a new town was built and it was this stratum (Late Bronze Age) which was presumably the town Joshua captured. Unfortunately, the last expedition led by Dr. Kenyon showed that almost all traces of it had been eroded and had served as a quarry for stone and earth for later building. The expedition was even able to demonstrate that one of the lines of the town walls which used to be attributed to this period had actually belonged to the Early Bronze Age. In fact, apart from a few potsherds of the Mycenaean period, and a number of scarabs inscribed with the names of different Pharaohs, the only traces of the Late Bronze Age town were a few fragments of houses, probably dating from the 14th C. BC. This town was abandoned about 1325 BC and left unoccupied for some 400 years, during which time erosion obliterated almost every trace of it. The Riddle of Jericho's Fall This situation has left undecided the question of the date of Joshua's conquest, a problem which has exercised the minds of eminent archaeologists such as W. F. Albright, J. Garstang, B. Mazar and many others. The 400 years of desertion seem to fit in with the biblical account of Joshua's curse of Jericho and its abandonment for a similar period, but Joshua's conquest must have taken place at least a century later than 1325. The biblical record may have compressed events which took place over a comparatively long period into a chronological sequence which it is difficult to confirm today in view of the limited archaeological evidence available. The dramatic capture of Jericho as recorded in the Book of Joshua was probably written down many years later, on the basis of popular recollections of a memorable event. The exact relation between the abandonment of Jericho in the 14th c. and the Israelite conquest of the Promised Land remains uncertain. Evidence of Jericho's People Outside the walls of the Early Bronze Age town, numerous mass graves were uncovered which yielded important evidence of the vessels and tools used at that time. During the Middle Bronze Age A, tombs were uncovered for the first time, of single burials, and held few vessels and tools. Biblical Jericho In the late Bronze Age (14th C. BC), Jericho stood to the west of a ford used by all travellers crossing that section of the Jordan. It plays an important role in the biblical narrative of Israelite penetration of the country from the East. The book of Joshua (2-6) records that the Israelites camped before the town, which was surrounded by a high wall with houses built into it. The story of how Joshua's spies were hidden in such a house is well known (Joshua 2) as is the tradition that the walls sealing the town fell on the seventh day of the Israelite attack, at the sound of the trumpets. After its capture, the town was destroyed and its inhabitants slaughtered, with the sole exception of Rahab the harlot, who had harboured the spies, and her family. Finally, Joshua laid a curse on anyone who should attempt to rebuild Jericho. The available archaeological evidence has not so far made it possible to solve the riddle which the -biblical narrative represents. In the distribution of the land among the tribes, Jericho was assigned to Benjamin (Jos. 18:21); but it was lost when the king of Moab captured it with the help of the Ammonites and the Amalekites (Jud. 3:13). The area was apparently inhabited during David's reign, (II Sam 10:5) but during the reign of Ahab, Hiel Beth Ha'eli brought down Joshua's curse on his head by "rebuilding" Jericho, (presumably fortifying the town, I K. 16:34). An extensive structure, called the "Greek house" by its German excavators, was discovered from the 10th century BC town of the period of Judges. In fact it is a typical Israelite building of the time, built in four sections. Over its ruins buildings had been erected during the late monarchy and these may conceivably represent the town built by Hiel Beth Ha'eli.
Jericho was a meeting place for the prophets. Both Elijah and Elisha stayed there. Elijah was taken up to heaven nearby, (II K. 2:4-11) and Elisha purified its water (11 K. 2:19-22). The Judean prisoners released by the Israelites after their defeat of King Ahaz were returned to Jericho (11 Ch. 28:15), while in the Plain of Jericho, Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was captured as he was fleeing from the conquering Babylonians (Jer. 39:5). Jericho was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and its inhabitants deported with the Jews from the rest of the country. Post-Exilic Jericho During the Persian period, Jericho was ruled by the Satraps, a fact attested by the discovery of
seals of the period inscribed "Yhud" (the name of the Persian province of Judea). In 352-351
BC, the town was destroyed by King Artaxerxes III (Ochus) of Persia as a reprisal for a rebellion by the Jericho Jews. Later on, the town and its surrounding territory were taken over by the
Nabateans. Herodian and Roman times
During the Roman period, Jericho's reputation stood high as a centre for the cultivation of balsam and other perfumes. When Cleopatra was intriguing to take control of Judea and Arabia, Mark Antony compromised by awarding her the palm and balsam groves of Jericho. Herod perforce agreed, but he leased the plantations from her and "farmed" out the rent to his advantage, (i. e. acquired the right to collect the Queen's royal revenues). Following the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Augustus restored Jericho to Herod. Josephus records that Herod enriched the town with a number of public buildings, including a hippodrome, and an amphitheatre, together with a winter palace for himself and villas for the Jewish upper class in the new town west of ancient Jericho. He also built a new wall with two towers around the town, one tower named Kypros after his mother and one named Phasael for his brother. When Herod died, his palace was burned down, but his son, Archelaus, rebuilt it and improved its palm plantations. New Testament Times Jesus was familiar with all the district. The scene of the Temptation may have been in the desolate mountains above the town, and the place of his baptism by John was not far away. He made the road leading to Jericho the scene of his parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:30).
The road he took on his last visit to Jerusalem led Jesus to Jericho where he stayed at the house of Zacchaeus, a rich publican (tax collector, Lk. 19:1-9), and restored the sight of the blind beggar, (18:35-43). Jericho, in Jesus' time, was a thriving, prosperous city, the centre of development of the Romanized Jericho Valley. It contained a small wealthy middle class and a great number of poor people who lived in hopes of better things to come. The town was destroyed by Vespasian during the first Jewish-Roman war, although later on a garrison was stationed there. Hadrian rebuilt Jericho and it continued in existence throughout the Byzantine period.
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