ETERNITY

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Jericho

Thanks for your reply.

Found this posted information interesting about Jericho. If we factor out some of the dating methods used as not being reliable (which may be the case), Jericho is believed to be the oldest continuously-inhabited (cities) in the world. From the way in which the entry was typed, not sure if the author meant it was considered the oldest continuously-inhabited city or one of the oldest.

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Jericho 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. Despite the city's long history, Jericho was first mentioned in the Book of Numbers.

Jericho is believed to be the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, and archaeologists have unearthed the remains of over 20 successive settlements there, dating back to 11,000 years ago (9000 BCE).

Jericho has a population of approximately 25,000 Palestinians. 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.

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Walls of Jericho

Main article: Battle of Jericho

The Biblical account of the destruction of Jericho is found in the Book of Joshua. The Bible describes the destruction as having proceeded from the actions of Joshua, Moses' successor. The Exodus is usually dated to the 13th century BCE (based on Ussherian calculation) − according to interpretation of archaeological evidence from the Merneptah Stele. That was followed by new settlements in the next century. At that time the Pharaoh of Egypt would have been Ramses II. Alternatively, the exodus is dated to the 15th century BCE according to a prevailing Christian reckoning of biblical chronology, which is synchronized with several ancient calendars with astronomical observation. At that time the Pharaoh would have been Thutmose III (1490-1430). Neither biblical chronology matches the popular interpretation of the archaeological evidence at Jericho.

Joshua instructs his spies to "Go, view the Land, especially Jerichoל" Joshua 2:1). kathleen Kenyon commented that this order "is an illustration of the position of Jericho in the age-long process of penetration by nomads and seminomads from the desert area in the east into the fertile coastal lands," due to the town's position in the Jordan valley at the foot of a passage through the Judean hills to the west.

A destruction of Jericho's walls dates archaeologically to around 1550 BCE in the 16th century BCE at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, by a siege or an earthquake in the context of a burn layer, called City IV destruction. Opinions differ as to whether they are the walls referred to in the Bible. According to one biblical chronology, the Israelites destroyed Jericho after its walls fell out around 1407 BCE: the end of the 15th century. Originally, John Garstang's excavation in the 1930s dated Jericho's destruction to around 1400 BCE, in confirmation, but like much early biblical archaeology, his work became criticised for using the Bible to interpret the evidence rather than letting the facts on the ground draw their own conclusions. Kathleen Kenyon's excavation in the 1950s redated it to around 1550 BCE, a date that most archaeologists support. In 1990, Bryant Wood critiqued Kenyon's work after her field notes became fully available. Observing ambiguities and relying on the only available carbon dating of the burn layer, which yielded a date of 1410 BCE plus or minus 40 years, Wood dated the destruction to this carbon dating, confirming Garstang and the biblical chronology. Unfortunately, this carbon date was itself the result of faulty calibration. In 1995, Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht used high-precision radiocarbon dating for eighteen samples from Jericho, including six samples of charred cereal grains from the burn layer, and overall dated the destruction to an average 1562 BCE add or subtract 38 years. Kenyon's date of around 1550 BCE is widely accepted based on this methodology of dating. Notably, many other Canaanite cities were destroyed around this time.

The widespread destructions of the 16th century BCE are often linked with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt around this time. The 1st-century historian Josephus, in Against Apion, identified the Exodus of Israelites according to the Bible as the Expulsion of the Hyksos according to the Egyptian texts.

A few scholars follow the controversial new chronology of David Rohl, which postulates that the entire mainstream Egyptian chronology is 300 years misplaced; with the consequence that, among other things, the exodus would be dated to the 16th or 17th century BCE, and hence the archaeological record on Jericho would be much more aligned with the biblical account. Despite this, a number of literalist Christians, most prominently the respected Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen, have vehemently attacked Rohl's chronology, since it introduces a number of other problems and issues (such as identifying the biblical Shishak as Ramses II, rather than the far more obviously named Shoshenq)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho