11/13/2023 0 Comments Jericho meaning![]() The largest group found together were nine examples, buried in the fill below the plastered floor of one house. Shells were used for eyes and traces of paint revealed that skin and hair were also included in the representations. Other possible evidence of cult practice was discovered in several homes of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic town, in the form of plastered human skulls which were molded over to resemble living heads. Archaeologists discovered one uniquely large building dating to the period with unique series of plastered interior pits and basins as well as domed adjoining structures and it is thought this was for ceremonial use. In this period there is some strong evidence for cult or religious belief at Jericho. This mortar, like a plaster, was also used to create a smooth surface on the interior walls, extending down across the floors as well. Houses in this era were uniformly rectangular and constructed with a new kind of rectangular mud bricks which were decorated with herringbone thumb impressions, and always laid lengthwise in thick mud mortar. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period is followed by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (7000–5200 BCE), which was different from its predecessor in important ways. However, regardless of its original use, here we have the first version of the walls Joshua so ably conquered some six thousand years later. Theories as to the function of this wall range from military defense to keeping out animal predators to even combating the natural rising of the level of the ground surrounding the settlement. The settlement grew quickly and, for reasons unknown, the inhabitants soon constructed a substantial stone wall and exterior ditch around their town, complete with a stone tower almost eight meters high, set against the inner side of the wall. Specifically, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A levels at Jericho (8500–7000 BCE) archaeologists found remains of a very large settlement of circular homes made with mud brick and topped with domed roofs. As the name of this era implies, these early people at Jericho had not yet figured out how to make pottery, but they made vessels out of stone, wove cloth and for tools were trading for aparticularly useful kind of stone, obsidian, from as far away as Çiftlik, in eastern Turkey. The earliest visitors to the site who left remains (stone tools) came in the Mesolithic period (around 9000 BCE) but the first settlement at the site, around the Ein as-Sultan spring, dates to the early Neolithic era, and these people, who built homes, grew plants, and kept animals, were among the earliest to do such anywhere in the world. The site of Jericho rises above the wide plain of the Jordan Valley, its height the result of layer upon layer of human habitation, a formation called a Tell. ![]() Although unequivocal evidence of Joshua himself has yet to be found, what has been uncovered are some 12,000 years of human activity. The most spectacular finds at Jericho, however, do not date to the time of Joshua, roughly the Bronze Age (3300–1200 BCE), but rather to the earliest part of the Neolithic era, before even the technology to make pottery had been discovered. What continues to draw archaeologists to Jericho today is the hope of finding some evidence of the warrior Joshua, who lead the Israelites to an unlikely victory against the Canaanites (“the walls of the city fell when Joshua and his men marched around them blowing horns” Joshua 6:1–27). ![]() The site of Jericho is best known for its identity in the Bible and this has drawn pilgrims and explorers to it as early as the fourth century CE serious archaeological exploration didn’t begin until the latter half of the nineteenth century. This resource, which drew its first visitors between 10,0 BCE, still has ancestors that live there today. The reason for this may be found in its Arabic name, Ārīḥā, which means fragrant Jericho is a natural oasis in the desert where countless fresh water springs can be found. The site of Jericho, just north of the Dead Sea and due west of the Jordan River, is one of the oldest continuously lived-in cities in the world. Jericho, Tell es-Sultan archaeological site
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