Jericho

   An important early archaeological site in the Fertile Crescent and later a Hebrew town captured, along with the rest of Palestine, by the Assyrians. Located just north of the Dead Sea, Jericho (modern Tell-es-Sultan) occupied a strategic spot along a trade route running from the deserts west of Mesopotamia to coastal Palestine. The town was among the early agricultural settlements in the Fertile Crescent, which stretched northeastward into Syria and then eastward across the northern rim of Mesopotamia. Archaeologists divide prehistoric Jericho into three levels of habitation: pre-agricultural, before 9000 b.c.; pre-pottery A, ninth and eighth millennia B.C.; and pre-pottery B, seventh and sixth millennia B.C.The second of these towns had a stone defensive wall with a stone tower and several round mud-brick houses. The people grew barley, emmer wheat, and lentils. Much later Jericho became part of ancient Israel until that kingdom was absorbed by Assyria in the eighth century B.C. The book of Joshua in the Old Testament describes how the early Hebrews laid siege to Jericho and brought down its walls by shouting and blasting trumpets. Partly because of its importance for studies of the prehistoric Near East and also because of its prominence as an early Hebrew city, Jericho has been excavated numerous times. The first digs there were conducted by Charles Warren in 1868. Then came Carl Watzinger (1907-1909), John Garstang (1930-1936), Kathleen Kenyon (19521958), and Lorenzo Nigro (1997).

   See also: farming; Fertile Crescent; Palestine