Jericho

Jericho (/ˈdʒɛrɪkoʊ/ JERR-ik-oh; Arabic: أريحا Arīḥā [ʔaˈriːħaː] (listen); Hebrew: יְרִיחוֹ Yərīḥō) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Governorate and is governed by the Palestinian National Authority.^[2] In 2007, it had a population of 18,346.^[3]

With the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, the city was annexed and ruled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 and, with the rest of the West Bank, has been subject to Israeli occupation since 1967; administrative control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in 1994.^[4][5]

Jericho is claimed to be the oldest city in the world,^[6][7][8] and it is also the city with the oldest known protective wall.^[9] Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years (to 9000 BCE),^[10][11] almost to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history.^[12][13] Copious springs in and around the city have attracted human habitation for thousands of years.^[14] Jericho is described in the Hebrew Bible as the "city of palm trees".^[15]

Jericho's name in Hebrew, Yeriẖo, is generally thought to derive from the Canaanite word reaẖ ("fragrant"), but other theories hold that it originates in the Canaanite word for "moon" (Yareaẖ) or the name of the lunar deity Yarikh, for whom the city was an early centre of worship.^[16]

Jericho's Arabic name, ʼArīḥā, means "fragrant" and also has its roots in Canaanite Reaẖ.^[17][18][19]

The first excavations of the site were made by Charles Warren in 1868. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated Tell es-Sultan and Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq between 1907 and 1909, and in 1911, and John Garstang excavated between 1930 and 1936. Extensive investigations using more modern techniques were made by Kathleen Kenyon between 1952 and 1958. Lorenzo Nigro and Nicolò Marchetti conducted excavations in 1997–2000. Since 2009 the Italian-Palestinian archaeological project of excavation and restoration was resumed by Rome "La Sapienza" University and Palestinian MOTA-DACH under the direction of Lorenzo Nigro and Hamdan Taha, and Jehad Yasine since 2015.^[20] The Italian-Palestinian Expedition carried out 13 seasons in 20 years (1997–2017), with some major discoveries, like Tower A1 in the Middle Bronze Age southern Lower Town and Palace G on the eastern flanks of the Spring Hill overlooking the Spring of 'Ain es-Sultan dating from Early Bronze III.