Tell es-Sultan: The Walls of Jericho

In 1868, Charles Warren named a mound beside a large spring as ancient Jericho. His reason was the spring's closeness.

Scripture: So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city.

That mound is Tell es-Sultan, Sultan's Hill, two kilometres north of modern Jericho's centre. Its spring, Ein es-Sultan, had been proposed as the spring of Elisha three decades earlier by Edward Robinson.

People first settled here permanently between ten thousand and nine thousand BCE, apparently before farming began. Jericho is among the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, about 8500 to 7500 BCE, the town was surrounded by a stone wall over three point six metres high, with a stone tower inside it. Archaeologists call this culture Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, a farming-era stage before pottery.

The town covered about four hectares, with round houses of sun-dried mud brick and no planned streets. How many people lived here is still debated, with estimates from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Photo captions label other areas Early Bronze IIIB and Middle Bronze II, both showing city walls. The hill holds layer upon layer.

Today the tell is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed in 2023, and a National Archaeological Park. The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities manages it, overseeing conservation in partnership with the Sapienza University of Rome expedition.

Ruins this old remind us how much is still being studied. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow Bible Evidence for more from the ground.