Jericho (Jericho, Palestine) is the most ancient city on Earth and the Mount of Temptation. Jericho: the oldest city on earth Incident on the border

Many cities of antiquity claim the right to be called the first city of the Earth. However, one of them still remains out of competition. The legend of its walls, which fell from the roar of Jewish military trumpets, immortalized this ancient city in people's memory. But for historians, this name sounds even more significant. Among the centers of urban civilization discovered up to our time, Jericho is the most ancient and continuously inhabited city in the world (it is 10,000 years old) and the lowest located on our planet (250 m below sea level).

It was located in an oasis near the place where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea and blocked the path to Palestine for any conqueror coming from the Jordan Valley. Jericho was the first city that the children of Israel conquered when they came to the Promised Land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness. “Whoever takes Jericho can be considered the master of all Eretz-Israel,” the Jews said.

According to the Old Testament Book of Joshua, the Israelites, after their exodus from Egypt and forty years of wandering in the desert, began the conquest of Canaan from the city of Jericho. After Moses died, Joshua became the new leader, under whose leadership they crossed the Jordan and took Jericho under siege. The townspeople, who took refuge behind the powerful walls, were sure that the city was impregnable, because the powerful walls of Jericho could not be overcome by force of arms. Only a miracle could help here. But Joshua had a vision: an angel with a sword, through whose mouth the Lord promised to hand over the impregnable city to the sons of Israel.

First, Jesus sent spies into the city. The local harlot Rahab hid them in her house and helped them escape at night. In return for her help, Rahab asked that her family be left alive after Jericho was taken. Then the Israelites walked around the walls of Jericho for six days at a safe distance for life. The procession was led by the soldiers, followed by the priests and blew jubilee trumpets, followed by the Levites carrying the ark of the covenant, and closing this procession were old men, women and children. All 40,000 people were silent, only the howling and whistling of the pipes resounded the air.

On the seventh day, Joshua decided to attack. The Israelites circled the walls six times in silence. And on the seventh lap they screamed loudly and blew their trumpets, so loudly that the formidable walls collapsed. This is where the expression "Jericho's trumpet" comes from.

The fate of the inhabitants of Jericho was terrible: "... everything in the city, both husbands and wives, both young and old, and oxen, and sheep, and donkeys, they all destroyed with the sword." They spared only the harlot Rahab and her family, who from that time lived among the people of Israel. “They burned the city and everything in it with fire,” except for “silver and gold and vessels of copper and iron,” which were handed over to the Jewish priests. After that, Jesus cursed all those who dare to restore Jericho.

Since that time, only a small settlement existed on the ashes for quite a long time. Under King Ahab (874-852 BC), Jericho was restored by the royal governor Chiel from Bet-El, who, as the Bible says, paid for this in fulfillment of the curse with the death of his firstborn and youngest son (I Ch. 16:34) . After that, Jericho again rose to prominence and played an important role in history.

During the Roman period, Antony donated Jericho, but returned it to Herod, who erected his winter palace there. During the Jewish War of 66–73, the city was destroyed and rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian. It is mentioned by Flavius Josephus, Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny and others.

Under Constantine I the Great, there was a Christian church there, with a bishop at the head. Over time, the city of Jericho began to decline. In the 7th century, after the conquest of the country by the Arabs, Jews settled there, expelled by Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula. During the battles between the Crusaders and Muslims, Jericho was destroyed and lay in ruins until the middle of the 19th century, when the first archaeologists began to come here, intending to check the biblical legend. True, luck did not smile at the pioneers - they could not find anything ...

1899 - German archaeologist Ernst Sellin studied the surface of the hill and found several shards of Canaanite dishes. He came to the conclusion that it was not in vain that his predecessors were attracted by these lands: most likely, an ancient city was hidden under the layering. The scientist prepared more thoroughly, and in 1907 he discovered houses and a part of the city wall with a tower (5 rows of masonry and adobe masonry 3 m high). In the end, in 1908, the East German Society organized a serious excavation, led by professors Ernst Sellin and Karl Watzinger. They were able to find two parallel fortification walls built of sun-dried bricks. The outer wall was 2 m thick and 8–10 m high, while the inner wall was 3.5 m thick.

Archaeologists have determined that these walls were built between 1400 and 1200 BC. e., and identified them with those walls, which, according to the Bible, collapsed from the powerful sounds of the trumpets of the Israelite tribes. But during the excavations, archaeologists came across the remains of construction debris, which was of even greater interest to science than the finds that confirmed the biblical information about the ancient war. But because of the modern war - the First World War - further scientific research was suspended.

It took two decades before a group of Britons led by Professor John Garstang was able to continue the work of their predecessors. New excavations were started in 1929 and continued for about 10 years.

In 1935–1936, Garstang found the lower layers of the Stone Age settlement. People who did not yet know ceramics were already leading a sedentary lifestyle. They lived first in round semi-dugouts, and then in rectangular houses.

Once again, the ambitions of modern rulers prevented scientific activity. The work of the Garstang expedition was interrupted due to the difficult political situation. And only after the end of World War II did English archaeologists return to Jericho again. This time the expedition was led by Dr. Kathleen M. Canyon, whose activities are associated with all further discoveries in this ancient city of the world. To participate in the excavations, the British invited German anthropologists who had been working in Jericho for several years.

1953 - archaeologists led by Kathleen Canyon made an outstanding discovery that completely changed our understanding of the early history of mankind. The researchers were able to break through 40 cultural layers and found structures of the Neolithic period with huge buildings dating back to the time when, it would seem, only nomadic tribes should have lived on Earth, earning their livelihood by hunting and gathering plants and fruits. It became a sensation in archeology in the 1950s. Systematic excavations here have found a number of successive layers, combined into two complexes - pre-ceramic Neolithic A (VIII millennium BC) and pre-ceramic Neolithic B (VII millennium BC).

Today, the city of Jericho is considered the first urban-type settlement discovered in the Old World. The earliest permanent buildings known to science, burials and sanctuaries, built of earth or small rounded unbaked bricks, were discovered there. Without a doubt, Jericho, with its sedentary population and developed construction business, was one of the first early agricultural settlements on Earth. Based on many years of research conducted here, historians have received a completely new picture of the development and technical capabilities that mankind had 10,000 years ago.

The transformation of Jericho from a small primitive settlement with miserable huts and huts into a real city with an area of at least 3 hectares and a population of several thousand people is associated with the transition of the local population from a simple gathering of edible cereals to agriculture - growing wheat and barley. At the same time, the researchers managed to establish that this revolutionary step was not taken as a result of some kind of introduction from the outside, but was the result of the development of the tribes living here: archaeological excavations of Jericho showed that in the period between the culture of the original settlement and the culture of the new city, which was built on at the turn of the 9th and 8th millennium BC. e., life here did not stop.

Josephus Flavius called this area "the most fertile land of Judea" or "God's country". And now, when approaching Jericho, the contrast between the scorched desert around and the fresh, lush greenery of the city, which grows here thanks to the power of numerous underground springs and winter streams rushing from the nearby mountains, is striking. It is thanks to the sources that Jereikhon, which in Aramaic means "lunar" (in Arabic - Erich), most likely owes its appearance.

At first, the town was not fortified, but with the advent of strong neighbors, fortifications were needed to protect against attacks. The appearance of fortifications speaks not only of the confrontation between different tribes, but also of the accumulation of certain material values by the inhabitants of the ancient city, which attracted the greedy eyes of neighbors. What could those values be? Archaeologists have answered this question as well. Perhaps the main source of income for the townspeople was barter: a well-located city controlled the main resources of the Dead Sea - salt, bitumen and sulfur. Obsidian, jade and diorite from Anatolia, turquoise from the Sinai Peninsula, cowrie shells from the Red Sea were found in Jericho - all these goods were highly valued during the Neolithic period.

The fact that Jericho eventually became a powerful urban center is evidenced by its defensive fortifications. The settlement occupied an area of about 4 hectares and was surrounded by a moat 8.5 m wide and 2.1 m deep, carved into the rock. Behind the ditch rose a stone wall 1.64 m thick, preserved at a height of 3.94 m. Its original height may have reached 5 m, and above there was a laying of mud brick.

A massive round stone tower adjoined it. Initially, scientists assumed that this was the tower of the fortress wall. But obviously, it was a special-purpose building, combining many functions, including the function of a guard post for monitoring the surroundings. The tower had a diameter of 7 m and was preserved to a height of 8.15 m. It is equipped with an internal staircase, carefully built from solid stone slabs one meter wide. The tower housed a storehouse for grain and clayed cisterns to collect rainwater.

The stone tower of Jericho may have been erected at the beginning of the 8th millennium BC. e. and lasted for a very long time. When it ceased to be used for its intended purpose, crypts for burials began to be arranged in its inner passage, and the former vaults were used as dwellings. These rooms were often rebuilt. One of them, which died in a fire, dates back to the border of the 8th and 7th millennia BC. e.

After that, in the history of the tower, the researchers counted 4 more periods of existence, and then the city wall collapsed and began to erode. Apparently, the city was already deserted at that time. Under the protection of a stone wall were round, tent-like houses on stone foundations with walls made of mud brick, one surface of which was convex (this type of brick is called "pig's back").

To more accurately determine the age of these structures, the latest scientific methods were used, including radiocarbon analysis. It was through the study of carbon isotopes that it was possible to establish that the most ancient walls of this city date back to the 8th millennium BC. e., that is, their age is approximately 10,000 years. The sanctuary turned out to be even more ancient - 9551 BC. e.

The construction of a powerful defensive system required an enormous expenditure of labor, the use of a significant labor force and the presence of some kind of central authority to organize and direct the work. Researchers estimate the population of this world's first city at 2,000, and this figure may be an underestimate.

What did the first citizens of the Earth look like and how did they live?

An analysis of the skulls and bone remains found in the ancient city showed that 10,000 years ago, undersized people with elongated skulls (dolichocephals), who belonged to the so-called Euro-African race, lived here 10,000 years ago. They built oval dwellings from lumps of clay, the floors of which were deepened below ground level. The house was entered through a doorway with wooden jambs.

Several steps led down. Most of the houses consisted of a single round or oval room 4–5 m in diameter, covered with a vault of intertwined rods. The ceiling, walls and floor were plastered with clay. The floors were carefully leveled, sometimes painted and polished.

The inhabitants of the ancient city of Jericho used stone and bone tools, did not know ceramics and ate wheat and barley, the grains of which were ground on stone grain grinders with stone pestles. From rough food, consisting of cereals and pods, pounded in stone mortars, these people completely wore out their teeth.

Despite a more comfortable living environment than that of primitive hunters, their life was exceptionally difficult, and the average age of the city's inhabitants was no more than 20 years old. Child mortality was very high, and only a few lived to be 40–45 years old. People older than this age in ancient Jericho, it seems, did not exist at all.

The townspeople buried their dead right under the floors of their dwellings, putting iconic plaster masks on their skulls with cowrie shells inserted into the eyes of the masks. Interestingly, in the oldest graves of Jericho (about 6500 BC), archaeologists mostly find skeletons without a head. Apparently, the skulls were separated from the bodies and buried separately. Ritual chopping off the head of the dead is known in many parts of the world and occurred until recently. Here, in the ancient city, scholars met, apparently, with one of the earliest manifestations of such a cult.

In this "pre-ceramic" period, the inhabitants of the city did not use earthenware - they were replaced by stone vessels, carved mainly from limestone. Perhaps they also used various wickerwork and leather receptacles like wineskins.
Not knowing how to make pottery, the Jericho people nevertheless used clay for modeling: many clay figurines of animals, as well as stucco images of the phallus, were found in residential buildings and tombs. The cult of the male principle was widespread in ancient Palestine, and its images are found in other places.

In one of the layers of the ancient city, archaeologists have found a kind of front hall with six wooden pillars. Maybe it was a sanctuary - a primitive predecessor of the future temple. Inside the building and in the immediate vicinity of it, archaeologists did not find any household items, but they found numerous clay figurines of horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs and phallic sculptures.

The most amazing discovery in Jericho was the stucco figures of people. They are made from local limestone clay with a reed frame. These figurines have normal proportions, but are flat from the front. Nowhere, except for Jericho, archaeologists have not seen such items before.

In one of the prehistoric layers of the city, life-size group sculptures of men, women and children were also found. For their manufacture, clay similar to cement was used, which was smeared on a reed frame. These figures were still quite primitive and planar: after all, the plastic art was preceded by rock paintings or images on the walls of caves. The discovered sculptures show how much interest the Jericho people showed in the creation of a family and the miracle of the origin of life - this was one of the first and most powerful impressions of prehistoric man.

The emergence of Jericho - the first urban center - testifies to the emergence of high forms of social organization. Even the invasion of more backward tribes from the north in the 5th millennium BC. e. did not interrupt this process, which as a result led to the creation of highly developed ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Middle East.

In the Late Bronze Age, Jericho was a prosperous city, surrounded by a mud-brick wall. After that, it was destroyed and stood in an uninhabited form for a very long time, until Khiel broke the spell and restored it, while losing his sons. And yet, could the sounds of trumpets and the furious cry of the people from the tribe of Israel really be able to destroy the impregnable walls? ..

Over the past century, much has changed in historical science, in particular modern views on the possible date of the Exodus. The fact is that the appearance of the tribal union of Israel in Canaan can be confidently dated to the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries BC. e. (characteristic 4-room houses appear, other signs of Israeli material culture, and the first written mention of Israel dates back to the same era). But the wall discovered in Jericho was destroyed much earlier, around 1560 BC. e. At the turn of 1200 BC. e. Jericho was practically uninhabited and had no walls, and this contradicts the biblical version of the development of events, since the cyclopean fortress walls of the city collapsed long before the time of Joshua and this city could not become an obstacle to the Israeli tribes invading Canaan.

Here again it is worth re-reading the Bible. There is a hint in the biblical story that allows us to offer some, albeit purely speculative, solution to this issue. This allusion is contained in the famous story of sending spies to Jericho and their rescue by the harlot Rahab. According to the Book of Joshua, Rahab let the spies out of the city by rope through the window of her house. That is, her house was part of the line of city fortifications.

Based on this, it is possible to assume that the city of Jericho at the time of Joshua was a ring of adobe houses, whose outer walls formed a “fortress” - such settlements were very common in Canaan at the end of the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age. The remains of such a "stronghold" in reality could be washed away and disappear without a trace, in contrast to the capital construction of fortifications of previous eras. And the imposing ruins of these earlier walls could later form the basis of the legend of the miracle of the Jericho trumpets.

True, tradition stubbornly attributes to Joshua the destruction of precisely those cyclopean, grandiose walls that collapsed around 1560 BC. e. It is possible to assume that some of the episodes included in the history of the conquest of Canaan actually belong to an earlier time and may be associated with the Khabiru rebellions in the 14th century BC. e. The mention of the Khabiru attack on Jericho is contained in one of the documents of the Amarna archive.

Some of the attackers, among whom were many Semites, could later become part of the Israeli people and bring with them memories of the assault on Jericho and other cities of Canaan. Over time, these stories merged into a single story about the conquest, where the events of different times were completely mixed up and, in this form, entered the official chronicles. And the unknown ancient commanders merged in the popular imagination with the brilliant Joshua, who still has the honor of conquering Canaan.

Jericho(pronounced in Hebrew Yericho) is a famous city that lay within the tribe of Benjamin. The usual meaning of the word is: fragrant, fragrant, but, according to some interpreters, it means month or the moon, which the founders of Jericho could idolize.

For the first time, Jericho is mentioned in the Bible in the XXII chapter of the book. Number (v. 1) in these words: And the sons of Israel set out and stopped in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan, against Jericho which words, with slight modifications, are repeated eight or nine times in the said book.

Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab, as well as the top of Mount Pisgah are presented in the book. Deuteronomy lying against Jericho(). From the third verse of chapter XXXIV it appears that Jericho was called the city of Palms, a name found in the book. Judges (), but probably not about the same place. According to Furst, the first quote in the book. Judge points to a well-known area on the Sinai Peninsula, according to others - to En Geddi. The second quote in the book Judge Furst refers directly to the city of Jericho, which was also called the city of Palms even in the time of Ahaz ().

Before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, Joshua sent two spies to spy the land and Jericho. At that time, the king had a stay in Jericho, who, having heard about the arrival of strangers in the city, demanded that Rahava the harlot extradite spies in order to punish them. The city was surrounded by a wall, had a gate, and the house of Rahab, in which the young men hid for the night, was on the wall - a circumstance that greatly contributed to their flight, because Rahab let them down on a rope through the window, and they, hiding for three days in the mountains, safely then returned to Joshua (). After that, Joshua led the people across the Jordan against Jericho () and set up a camp in Gilgal, on the eastern side of Jericho, where the Jews in the plains of Jericho celebrated Passover on the 14th day of the month in the evening (). The walls of the besieged city miraculously fell, after a seven-day walk around it with the Ark of the Covenant and the trumpet sounds of the priests. Jericho was taken, and everything in it was put to the sword and destruction (). By faith the walls of Jericho fell, says app. Paul, by seven days ().

Upon the conquest of the city, Joshua uttered a formidable curse on the one who would dare to restore it. On his firstborn he will lay its foundation, he said, and on his youngest he will set up its gates.(Article 25). And so it happened, namely: when, in the days of c. Ahab, a certain Ahiel from Bethel dared to restore Jericho, then, according to the priests. chronicler, on his firstborn, Abiram, he laid its foundation, and on his youngest son, Segub, he set up its gates ().

When the Promised Land was divided, the southern border of the tribe of Ephraim and the northern border of Benjamin passed near Jericho, but the city was given to the latter ().

Then we meet with Jericho already in the time of David (), although, perhaps, he was already in ruins at the indicated time, since the restoration of this by Ahiel took place only in the reign of Ahab. Here, as in a secluded desert place, Ave. Elijah had a stay; nearby was the school of the prophets, where the sons of the prophets lived (), as well as there was a source, the harmful waters of which St. Elisha made healthy (). The mentioned source still exists and is located 20 minutes from the town of Sorokadnevnaya.

The army of Nebuchadnezzar struck and captured the Jewish c. Zedekiah on plains of Jericho ().

Some of the natives of Jericho returned from captivity () and helped in the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem ().

Jericho is repeatedly mentioned in apocryphal books. I have risen like a palm tree in Engaddi, says Wisdom, and like rose bushes in Jericho(). See also (; etc.).

Under the Romans, Jericho was the royal residence, and Herod the Great died here.

There are few references to Jericho in the New Testament, but they are especially remarkable in the sense that they point to the repeated visits of Jericho by the Lord (, ,). Who among us has not read with spiritual tenderness the touching parable of the Savior about the beneficent Samaritan, which begins like this: a certain man went from Jerusalem to Jericho and was caught by robbers (). The road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho, through the so-called wilderness of Jericho, according to travelers, and is currently unsafe due to robbery attacks that often occur on it.

Josephus Flavius, Strabo, Ptolemy, Justin, Pliny and many other ancient writers also mention Jericho. Some of them point to its historical fate, while others point to the amazing fertility of the Jericho area in ancient times. In the reign of Constantine and in the subsequent time in Jericho there was a Christian church with a bishop at the head.

Now near ancient Jericho stands a small poor and dirty village, called by the Arabs of Er-Riha, with a few poor huts and miserable inhabitants, numbering about 200 people. The ruins of a quadrangular tower are visible on the site of Zakheev's house. Instead of the former luxurious vegetation, only wild thorny bushes now grow here; palm trees and Jericho roses, for which Jericho was so famous in ancient times, now almost do not exist. There are also no balsam trees, instead of which the tsakkum tree, named after Zacchaeus, grows in abundance, as well as many different wild flowers. From the top of the Forty-Day Mountain, beautiful picturesque views of the plain of Jericho and its surroundings open up.

Jericho is a city in Palestine on the West Bank of the Jordan River with a population of over 20,000 people. This is the most ancient city of the cities known today in the world, it has about 10 thousand years of continuous settlement.

The oldest archaeological evidence is the remains of the Neolithic tower, which is about 9,000 years old. The earliest written reference is the book of Joshua. The city remains inhabited to this day.

Jericho. Story.

The oldest and most discovered evidence of human habitation here is the sites of local nomadic tribes (hunters and gatherers), dated to 10,000 BC.

The first walls discovered by archaeologists were built of adobe bricks about 9,000 years ago.

Biblical Jericho.

After the death of Moses, the Lord appeared to Joshua and said: Moses my servant is dead; Arise therefore, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, the sons of Israel».

The first city in the land promised to the Israelites was Jericho (even then it was considered the oldest city). The path to Jericho lay through the Jordan River. When the army of Jesus approached the Jordan, its waters stopped and the soldiers crossed to the western banks of the Jordan River without getting their feet wet.
Examining the approaches to the city and the fortress walls, an angel appeared to Joshua and taught him how to capture the city ...
For six days, the entire army of Israel walked in complete silence around the city. The main Jewish shrine, the Ark of the Covenant, also participated in the procession, and at the same time the soldiers blew into the trumpets. On the seventh day, at the command of Jesus, the whole army shouted at once and the walls of the fortress collapsed.
All life in the city was destroyed, and the city itself was destroyed and burned. The way to the land promised to the Jews by God was opened.

Landmarks of Jericho.

The most ancient city of the Earth, Jericho, even today keeps a history of about 10 thousand years - these are excavated ancient monuments. The ruins of ancient Jericho are located to the west of the modern city. A powerful tower of the Neolithic era, city walls of the Early Bronze and Middle Bronze Ages, perhaps the very ones that fell from the loud trumpets of Israeli soldiers (Jericho trumpets), were excavated here.

At the foot of the Tel-as-Sultan hill is the source of the prophet Elisha, who, according to the Bible, purified its bitter waters.

To the south of the market place, the remains of Herod's palace with baths, pools and lavishly decorated halls were found.

Three kilometers north of modern Jericho are the ruins of a Byzantine city and the luxurious palace of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd el-Malik, who began building it in the 9th century.

The stucco decorations, columns and especially the remains of the finest mosaics are admired. The unfinished palace of the caliph was destroyed by an earthquake.

To the west of Jericho rises the Mount of Temptation. It was on it, according to the biblical stories, that Jesus Christ fasted for forty days, tempted by the devil.

Below is the monastery of Temptation (Karantal), carved into the rocks, founded in the 4th century. Pilgrims ascend the mountain in silence in honor of Jesus' forty-day fast.

Not so long ago, many Jews visited it - on the way to Lake Kinneret, on a tour, or in order to buy fruit at a cheap local market. With the beginning of the intifada, it became unsafe to visit Jericho, and after the signing of an agreement with the Palestinians, the city began to be controlled by the Arab administration. In principle, entry to Jericho is free, but before the tour it does not hurt to call the Ministry of Tourism.

It should be noted that the Arabs of Jericho have never been distinguished by extremism and, even during the intifada, there were practically no terrorist attacks. Therefore, the most ancient city known to mankind in our time attracts quite a lot of tourists.

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Jericho. In Hebrew, the city is called Jericho, in Arabic Erich, and stands at the foot of the Judean Mountains opposite the confluence of the Jordan into the Dead Sea in the Jericho oasis. Jericho is the oldest excavated city in the world, it has about 10 thousand years of almost continuous settlement. In addition, it is the world's lowest city, which is located more than 350 m below sea level in an oasis that is considered the largest in the entire Middle East and is located a few kilometers north of the northern tip of the Dead Sea.

According to one version, the name of the city comes from the word "moon" - "yareah" in Hebrew, according to another - from the word "smell", "fragrance" - "reah". The second hypothesis may be related to the fact that in ancient times spices and incense were grown in the Jericho oasis - the only place in Israel where, thanks to the unique climate and the presence of water, these crops can grow. The oldest archaeological evidence is the remains of a Neolithic tower, about 8 thousand years BC. e. The oldest written reference is the book of Joshua.

Immediately after the forty years of the Jews wandering in the desert and the death of Moses, the Jewish army crosses the Jordan approximately in the area of the modern Allenby bridge and camps in Gilgal just on the eve of Passover. Jericho becomes the first city captured by the Israelites with the help of a cunning military trick: the Jewish army bypasses the city 7 times, so that it seems to be besieged seven times as large, then blows 7 jubilee trumpets 7 times - "and the walls of the city fell" (Joshua 6). This is where the famous saying about "the trumpets of Jericho" came from. Jericho was completely destroyed, its inhabitants were destroyed to a single person, with the exception of the harlot Rahab, who at one time sheltered Jewish spies, for which she was spared.

It must be said that archaeologists have not found any evidence of that era, since the layer, which should correspond in time to the Jewish seizure of the Promised Land, like all subsequent layers in time, was washed away by the winter floods of the Wadi Kelt, which comes out here. Of course, this is not proof that the events described in the book of Joshua did not actually occur. According to the division of land between the tribes, the oasis of Yericho - the city itself was not restored - went to the tribe of Benjamin. Later served as a regional and agricultural center at various times and is mentioned many times in the Bible. During the Hasmonean period, a whole complex of summer royal palaces was built here, later rebuilt by Herod the Great for his own needs. In particular, Herod built a theater and a hippodrome here in the same building, which is rather unusual.

Biblical Jericho

It was presented as a valuable gift to the famous Cleopatra by Mark Antony in love. Destroyed during the Jewish War and rebuilt by the Roman emperor Hadrian in the first half of the 2nd century. n. e. After the destruction of the Second Temple, there are still several hundred years - at least until the 7th century. - there was a Jewish community, a mosaic floor of the synagogue of the late Talmudic period was found. During the Crusades, the city was again completely destroyed and later became one of the important Arab centers, which it remains to this day. In 1994, it was handed over by the government of Rabin to Arafat and became one of the main centers of the Palestinian Authority.

This place has always been of extreme strategic importance for 3 main reasons: here was and is the crossroads of the most important roads and caravan routes of the Middle East; unique, especially in the ancient world, cultures, spices and incense, the oldest persimmon plantation in the world was found here, it is believed that this fruit was cultivated for the first time here. Excavations in this historically interesting place have been carried out since the middle of the last century. They were attended by archaeologists from all over the world, including such famous ones as Kathleen Canyon, and Israeli ones - Ehud Netzer.
The excavations of the Hasmonean and Herodian palaces, carried out mainly in our time under the direction of Ehud Netzer, are located right at the point where the wadi Kelt leaves a rocky cleft and breaks out into open space. The Hasmoneans have probably been building here since the founding of the dynasty, although the maximum development occurs during the period of Alexander Jannai. After that, the most successful Hasmonean king, Queen Alexander Salome - Shlomtzion ha-Malka completed the construction of two more palaces, and during her lifetime, the son of Antipater Herod, gradually coming into power, builds his first villa - a summer palace. The Herodian construction here is quite unusual: it was carried out by a special construction team sent from Rome by the son-in-law of Emperor Augustus Agrippa and therefore is completely different from typical Herodian construction elsewhere.

First, the buildings are constructed from unusually small bricks. Secondly, the walls are not built of square-shaped bricks, as everywhere - opus quadratum, but diamond-shaped, which stand on a sharp edge - opus reticulatum. Such construction is observed only during this period and only in three places in Israel - here in Banias and not far from the Shechem Gate in Jerusalem. Most likely, the same team built in all three places, which then returned to Rome. The back wall of the Herodian pool with niches for statues and plaster is well preserved here. In the structure, a purely Hellenistic combination of architecture and nature, unusual for Roman architecture, is well felt. In Israel, more than in Rome, traces and ideas of ancient Greece that have gone down in history have been preserved. There are also the ruins of a large palace with a huge central hall, with a well-worked floor lined with multi-colored stones, and pools with brick pillars with the remains of a very thick layer of plaster, as well as a round room with a round structure in the middle of an unknown purpose: perhaps a pool, or a fountain, or something else.

Perhaps the main attraction of Jericho is the mound of the ancient city, Tel Jericho. The Arabs call it Tel es-Sultan, and the source next to it is En-Sultan, the same one in which the prophet Elisha - Elisha - desalinated the water. It was in this place that the walls stood, which fell from the sound of the trumpets of the Israelites. Excavations carried out here many times, since the time of English explorers of the last century, have found a lot of interesting things. First Warren and then Kathleen Canyon excavated the entire body, exposing the ruins of the city down to the Neolithic tower - 8 millennium BC. e., when there were no cities anywhere in the world at all. Also found were city walls made of red bricks, which date back to about the 3rd millennium BC. e. - the beginning of the early Bronze Age, when, again, there were practically no cities in the world.

Jericho today

The territory of the city of that period is approximately 40 acres and this is a large settlement for that time. The city was surrounded by a rampart, also preserved under a layer of earth, which surrounds an area twice as large as the territory of the city, which means that there may have been houses outside the fortress walls. The embankment had not only a military purpose, but also protected the city from floods. At the time of Joshua, it no longer existed, so the layer of this period was later washed away. There is a Coptic church in the city today, in the courtyard of which the floor of the Byzantine basilica of the Virgin was discovered. Not far from the bus station, the building of the Russian Orthodox mission and the hostel for pilgrims have been preserved, on the territory of which a Byzantine tombstone of 566 with a dedication to the local bishop was found. Today this building serves the Palestinian Authority. In different parts of the city, ruins of various Byzantine buildings and churches were also found, among them Andrea, Tel el-Hassan and others. 600 m south of the main mound - the ruins of Herod's buildings, theater and hippodrome - Tel Samarat.
An ancient synagogue from about the 8th century was also found in Jericho. n. e. with a mosaic floor, which was discovered by chance during the reconstruction of an old house. The mosaic depicts a menorah and the arch of the covenant - aron ha-kodesh. There is also an inscription on the floor that reads: "Peace to the people of Israel." The synagogue was discovered in 1936. This house now belongs to the Jews and can be visited. Another important attraction of this ancient city is the ruins of the Arab palace of the Umayyad rulers Yericho of the 8th century BC. n. BC, known as the "Palace of Hisham". It was founded around 747-749. ruler El-Walid over a fairly large area, including his own farm, stretching to the banks of the Jordan River. It is believed that even before El-Walid, in 724, another ruler, Hisham el-Malik, chose this place, however, he did not manage to build almost anything. However, today the palace is called by mistake by his name.

Entering the palace through an impressive gate with niches for statues is a rather unusual phenomenon for Islam, which prohibits all kinds of images of a person. The found sculptures are today in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The gates are elaborately decorated with intricate ornate carvings, arabesques so common in the Muslim world in everything down to ornate speech. There is no symbolism in the images, they are just decorations. Behind the gate - seats - benches with stone headrests. Next - a huge courtyard with a beautiful abstract sculpture in the middle. From the yard there is a descent underground, where it is much cooler - there were rest rooms. This palace was never completed due to the injury and death of El-Walid, but he managed to build most of the structures. It was dug up by the Jordanians until 1967, and then by Israeli archaeologists. A huge and luxurious building of baths with mosaic floors and very thick columns has been preserved.

The baths were supposed to be covered with a roof, but it either collapsed over time, or was never built at all. The building is decorated with stone carvings and was covered with plaster. The guest room has been completely preserved with a very beautiful mosaic, with walls and a roof. Nearby are toilets. The entrance to the baths was decorated with a dome and carvings, which today are also kept in the Rockefeller Museum. A mosque with a mihrab and a pool with small arches - arabesques and a fountain have also been preserved. Today Jericho is part of the Palestinian Authority and visiting the city is not recommended. From Jericho to Ramallah there is an ancient road along which Roman milestones have been preserved.

Photo: panoramio.com, wikipedia.org, juan.livejournal.com kezling.ru

Attractions

Biblical story "The Capture of Jericho" (Jesus Nun)

For seven days, the army surrounds the city walls. On the seventh day the army marched around the city seven times, accompanied by the clergy blowing trumpets (Joshua 6:14-16).

The biblical text of the following episode has two interpretations.

The first, traditional, based on the translation called the Septuagint: “And they blew their trumpets, the people shouted with a loud voice, and from this the wall collapsed to the ground, and the army entered the city, and they took the city"(that is, the wall collapsed by itself, or from the sound of trumpets and war cries).
The second, less popular and based on later translations: “And they sounded the trumpets, and the war cries of the people going to the attack were heard. The wall of the city collapsed to the ground, and the army entered the city and took it ”( after does not mean due to.)

Taking the city, Jesus orders to exterminate its entire population. Only the harlot Rahab and her household were spared. Jericho itself was completely destroyed and burned, and Jesus pronounced a spell forbidding the rebuilding of the city (Josh. 6:25) and the use of silver, gold, copper and iron found in the city for domestic needs: all this was to be transferred to the future temple storage.

One of the soldiers of the Jewish army "took from the accursed", and because of this, the army was defeated in the next battle. Jesus, having learned about the violation of the ban, found from one of the soldiers golden objects taken from the ruins of Jericho, after which the marauder was executed, and divine anger subsided (Josh. 7: 1-26).

Later, Jesus entered into battle with several armies of the Canaanite tribes, who opposed him both alone and together, and defeated them, exterminating all the inhabitants of their cities, with the exception of the Canaanites who lived in Gazer, who did not come out to fight against the army of Jesus and subsequently remained to live among the tribe of Ephraim, after the division of the country between the tribes.

But after the division of the country and the death of Jesus, some Jews were tempted by the idolatry of the surrounding peoples. Each time after such a violation of the covenant, the neighboring kings went to war with them and easily defeated them and took the offenders into captivity.

Story

In 1904, the Germans Thirsch and Gelscher visited here and collected new data indicating the correctness of the conclusions of those who tried to find Jericho in the vicinity of Erichi. But the honor of the discoverer still belongs to Sellin. In 1907, Sellin's excavations produced materials that confirmed everything that archeology dreamed of: he discovered houses and part of the city wall with a tower (five rows of masonry and mud bricks 3 meters high). Finally, in 1908, serious excavations were organized (Eastern Society of Germany), the leaders of which were Sellin, Langen-Egger and Watzinger. In 1909, Nöldeke and Schulze joined them.

The hill, in plan resembling an ellipse, stretched from the north-northeast to the south-southwest, and the city covered an area of 235,000 square meters. Archaeologists unearthed completely (in the north) the width of the city wall, equal to 3 meters, opened the second city wall 1.5 meters wide.

Another piece of the wall was opened on the same northern slope of the hill with a stone plinth and adobe masonry 7 meters high. After examining an area of 1350 square meters between the city walls and trial northern excavations, scientists discovered a later Muslim cemetery in the upper layers, and the remains of urban buildings in the lower layers.

Excavations on the western side of the hill have unearthed stone staircases built after the destruction of the city walls, and under the stairs were also the remains of much earlier houses. In the northern part of the hill, the walls of the Hittite building (the "Khilani" building) are exposed. Closer to the eastern wall, which has not been preserved, the remains of houses have been excavated. Not far from the inner city wall, quarters occupied by houses, as well as a street under the wall, are open. On an area of 200 square meters to the west, a city wall and the remains of buildings were found, and a Byzantine necropolis was found under the wall. Near the southwestern wall, the remains of a Jewish-era house have been unearthed.

Initially, archaeologists counted eight layers, successively replacing one another: Muslim, the latest, represented by graves; Byzantine layer; late Jewish, with fragments of Attic utensils of the classical era; ancient Jewish, with fragments of Attic utensils of the classical era; ancient Jewish (house above the ancient wall), Israeli, which includes the house "Hilani", houses in the center (closer to the eastern missing wall) graves, stairs and the outer city wall, late Canaanite (finds between the outer and inner city walls and ceramics) ; ancient Canaanite - the remains of a city with houses and outer and inner city walls, and, finally, the original layer, also divided into several periods, which includes houses under the inner city wall, some massifs of bricks in the northwest ...

The city was called Lunar because of the cult of the Moon. The initial and Canaanite periods of Jericho, of which the latter is indicated by the destruction of massive brick walls in the northwest and the erection of two city walls - outer and inner, hiding the city like two rings. It was especially impregnable from the east, from where the nomads pestered. The population of the city both in the initial period and in the Canaanite period was one and the same. Flint tools, tools made of other stones, the so-called cup stones, were found in the oldest layer.

After the destruction of the city of the initial period, Jericho moved somewhat to the south of the hill. The Canaanite walls were built already in the 3-2 millennium BC. e. Sellin correlated the fact of destruction with the invasion of the "four kings of the East", described in the Book of Genesis.

The double fortress wall of Jericho is an exception for Palestine. But among the Hittites, this is a common way to protect cities.

Canaanite Jericho is beautiful. Aegean and Babylonian motifs are felt in it, although it is mostly independent. In one of the houses, a stone god was found, similar to the products of Gezer. Burials of the Canaanite period were not found in the city. The city was destroyed from the east, where the entire city wall was destroyed, and set on fire (traces of fire are everywhere), after which it remained almost uninhabited for some time. However, part of the population continued to live in Jericho, and archeology connects this with the late Canaanite period. The period is characterized by the so-called impaled ceramics. Sellin believed that this time Jericho was destroyed by the Israelites. In the Israelite era, the Canaanites remained in the city for a long time, until they were completely assimilated with the conquerors. However, the excavations of the beginning of the century showed that in the late Canaanite period there are no traces of the presence of another people. Before the invasion of the Israelites in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. there were still a few centuries left ... Actually, the Israeli layer in Jericho, Sellin himself dated the XI-IX centuries. BC e. Israeli Jericho is characterized by an extraordinary revival of the whole life of the city. The influence of ties with the Aramaic regions affected. Stairs were built over the ruined walls, a new imposing wall was erected ...

The Khilani Palace was built in the Hittite style. The city was filled with multi-colored various ceramics, even stylized as metal. The palace and wall of Israelite Jericho were built by Hiel, probably the governor of King Ahab. Jericho became the center of a significant region, and the fortress protected from the Moabites.

Burials have been unearthed in Jericho, Israel. They took place in the courtyards of houses. Clay vessels were found with bones. The children were buried under the floor of the houses.

At the end of the 8th century BC. e. the kingdom of Israel was destroyed. The walls of Israeli Jericho were destroyed, but the city did not cease to exist. Above it, two of its periods - early and late - lived the Jewish Jericho. The city was no longer fortified, but life was in full swing in it. Early Jewish Jericho was assembled at the eastern slope of the hill. The city traded through the Phoenician harbors with Cyprus and Egypt. Among the finds are Cypriot vases, Indian ceramics, Attic and Hellenic vessels, amulets, gods and demons. The Jewish city was destroyed under Sodekiah by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who attacked suddenly: a lot of utensils remained in the houses. The city was burned, and masses of people were taken into captivity.

New Jericho began to be rebuilt in the north (within the former). Under Artaxerxes III, all the inhabitants were already taken prisoner. Life on the hill has ceased.