How old is jericho israel

These springs, along with Elisha's Spring, provide a constant output of water used just as much for drinking, as it is for agriculture and irrigation. The abundance of water provided very rich and fertile farmland. Jericho Israel, or, "The City of Palms", was well known for producing large quantities of dates, which lead to its nickname.

Citrus fruits, bananas, flowers, and winter vegetables were also plentiful in Jericho. In fact, the domestication of both plants and animals predated Egypt and Mesopotamia by 1, years.

The location of Jericho Israel also played a key role in its longevity. From Jericho, the terrain rises 3, feet to the central mountains and Jerusalem in the west. Three routes led from the city to the Central Highlands. This ancient city was the doorway into the heart of Judea, and if Jericho could be taken, then the rest of Judea lay wide open. With this in mind, it is natural that God would have instructed Joshua to choose this site as the entry point for the Israelites into Canaan.

The story of Joshua, thus, begins with God's battle of Jericho. The ICH was the main artery of traffic throughout ancient Palestine. Jericho controlled this ford, as well as the main north-south route through the Jordan Valley, which led to Beth-shan, an extremely important trade city of antiquity.

Just to the east lies "The Kings Highway", mentioned in Numbers This road, though not as militarily important as the International Coastal Highway, held enormous economic potential. Starting at Ezion-geber, at the tip of the Gulf of Aqabah in the south, The Kings Highway ran nearly miles northward through the Transjordan to Damascus.

Caravans carried spices, perfumes, and other goods from the Arabian peninsula along this highway, stopping off at key sites along the way such as, Kirharseth, Dibon, Heshbon, Ramoth-gilead, and other major cities leading to Damascus. The economic significance of this route led to many conflicts between Damascus, Jericho, Israel, and other kingdoms in the Transjordan.

Coming from this direction, the most convenient way to enter Canaan was to cross the Jordan River near "The City of Palms". Despite the antiquity of this great city, and its obvious importance throughout history, the only written account of ancient Jericho Israel is found in the Bible. Study Resource. Author Rafael Ruppin dives into some of the most captivating and intriguing documents ever unearthed!

These 1, year old recollections of Julius Antigonos, a Roman Knight and Jewish Leader, shed invaluable light on the history of Israel. These documents were found buried in a leaden chest and sealed with tar from the Dead Sea. The Jericho Scrolls are a must have for fans of the ancient Near East!

Click on the book to purchase your copy! Enrich and further your studies with these Study Resources! Please give us your feedback concerning the products offered by clicking on the Contact Us tab on the NavBar. Jeroboam would become the first King of Israel. He had fled to Egypt during the reign of Solomon, as his popularity among the people put him in contest with King Solomon.

Jeroboam took for himself a bride from the Egyptian royal family, thus, a bond was formed between Egypt and the Northern Kingdom under the leadership of Jeroboam. This bond would become very important in the years following Jeroboam's death. The results of these excavations suggest that the walls of Tell es-Sultan have been built and rebuilt many times, due mainly to collapse caused by earthquakes, which are common in the region.

One of these events may be the basis for the story of Joshua. Modern-day Jericho is a popular tourist destination due to its pleasant climate, historical sites, and religious significance. Located in the disputed West Bank region of Israel, it has been ceded to Palestinian control as part of recent treaty agreements. This astronaut photograph illustrates the city center, and the original settlement mound of Tell es-Sultan.

Total distance across the image is approximately 8 kilometers 5 miles. Two large refugee camps are located to the northwest and south of the city center.

The high building density of the refugee camps contrasts sharply with the more open city center and irrigated fields green polygonal patches of Jericho, and illustrates one of the physical consequences of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the region. Perhaps, Bar-Yosef speculated, it might have been meant as some kind of temple? Tracking the astrological and topographical relationship of the wall, the tower, and the landscape, the pair made a startling discovery: The tower was exactly placed so that when the sun set on the longest day of the year, the hills behind it made it appear as though the tower were casting a shadow precisely over the settlement, spreading from the tip of the lofty pinnacle to every house and hut in Jericho.

They were built to impress them, and to invite them in. It would be natural to assume that if the people of Jericho were advertising something, it must have been some new kind of social and economic order, presumably of the farming-and-barter variety that usually forms the basis of city life. But this is not the case. The city-dwellers were, in fact, almost indistinguishable from their nomadic cousins wandering through the valley below, looking up in awe at the wall. The only thing that separated them was the wall.

The only thing it advertised was that the people of Jericho had built it. It is a prospect that would have staggered Enlightenment-era theorists. What philosopher Gaston Bachelard once observed about the invention of fire might also be said of wall-building. It was always and already a matter of ideology, an ideology born the instant the people of Jericho began stacking their undressed stones.

As compared to the significance of that act, the manner of the stacking is almost unremarkable. The initial wall of circa BCE, built shortly after the regular settlement was established, was nearly 12 feet high and six feet wide at the base.

The wall, from its earliest incarnation, was already entirely of stone, brought to the site more or less as found in the surrounding hills and set up against an internal earthen bank with a flat top.