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Thursday 10 September 2015

Jericho

Jericho is located five miles west of River Jordan on the West Bank. It is believed to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world.

The earliest known fortifications at Jericho was a Neolithic Tower dated to 8000-7000 BC. The tower stood 26 feet tall and was connected on the inside of a 12 foot tall wall.  Inside the tower there was an internal staircase with 22 stone steps.

The shadow of nearby mountains first hit the Tower of Jericho on the sunset of the summer solstice and then spread across the entire city.

The wall and tower have no known precedent in human culture, and would have taken a hundred men more than a hundred days to construct.

The earliest known walls of Jericho are twice as old as the Pyramids.

Jericho is described in the Hebrew Bible as the "City of Palm Trees". Copious springs in and around the city attracted human habitation for thousands of years.

It was first captured by Joshua, the leader of the Israelite tribes after the death of Moses,  when the city walls collapsed. Jericho was burned by Joshua at God's command. 500 years later, the city was rebuilt.

Jericho served as the private estate of Alexander the Great between 336 and 323 BC after his conquest of the region.

In New Testament times, Jesus was entertained at Jericho by Zacchaeus the tax gatherer, and there he healed blind Bartimaeus.

Jericho was occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967,  when it was occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War along with the rest of the West Bank. It was the first city handed over to Palestinian Authority control in accordance with the Oslo accords on May 4, 1994.

In 2007 the population of Jericho was 18,346. 

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