Jericho (Tell es-Sultan): the walls of Joshua

Jericho in the Book of Joshua

After the death of Moses, who looked out from Mount Nebo over "the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees" (Deuteronomy 34:3), Joshua leads the people camped on the plains of Moab, on the east bank of the Jordan. Jericho is the gateway to Canaan: an oasis town guarding the road that climbs to the hills of Judah and Benjamin.

Rahab and the two spies (Joshua 2)

From Shittim, Joshua secretly sends two men to view the land, "even Jericho" (Joshua 2:1). They lodge with Rahab, a harlot whose house is built into the town wall. When the king of Jericho has them sought, she hides them under stalks of flax on her roof and then helps them escape. In return, the spies promise to spare her family if she ties a scarlet cord in her window.

"Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall."

Joshua 2:15 (KJV)

Rahab, who acknowledges the power of the God of Israel (Joshua 2:11), became an important figure in both Jewish and Christian tradition: Matthew's Gospel lists her in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5), and the Epistle to the Hebrews presents her as a model of faith (Hebrews 11:31).

Crossing the Jordan (Joshua 3–4)

The narrative then describes the crossing of the river: as soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant step into the water, the current stops upstream "very far from the city Adam", and the people cross on dry ground "right against Jericho" (Joshua 3:16). Twelve stones, one per tribe, are set up at Gilgal, the first camp in Canaan, "in the east border of Jericho" (Joshua 4:19-20). The location of Gilgal is still uncertain: several sites in the plain have been proposed, without agreement.

The fall of the walls (Joshua 6)

Jericho is "straitly shut up". At God's command, the warriors march around the city once a day for six days, preceded by seven priests blowing rams' horns and by the Ark. On the seventh day they circle it seven times; at the signal, the people raise a great shout.

"So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."

Joshua 6:20 (KJV)

The city is placed under the ban (herem) and burned; only Rahab and her family are spared (Joshua 6:22-25). Joshua then pronounces a curse on anyone who rebuilds Jericho (Joshua 6:26). The Book of Kings reports that it came true in the days of Ahab, when Hiel of Bethel rebuilt the city at the cost of his sons (1 Kings 16:34).

Tell es-Sultan: a century of digging and debate

No biblical site has generated as much controversy over the "conquest". The core of the debate is easy to state: did the fortified city found destroyed in the mound still exist at the time biblical chronology assigns to Joshua?

• IdentificationTell es-Sultan = Old Testament Jericho (very broad consensus)
• First settlement10th millennium BC (Natufian)
• Major destructionEnd of the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1550 BC (majority dating)
• Late Bronze AgeLimited, poorly preserved occupation
• StatusUNESCO World Heritage Site since 2023

Early excavations and John Garstang (1930s)

After Charles Warren's soundings (1868) and the Austro-German dig of Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger (1907-1909 and 1911), the British archaeologist John Garstang excavated the mound from 1930 to 1936. He uncovered a collapsed double wall and a burnt layer that he dated to around 1400 BC: for him, this was the city destroyed by Joshua. His conclusion was repeated for decades in popular books.

Kathleen Kenyon (1952-1958): a turning point

Using more precise stratigraphic methods, Kathleen Kenyon showed that Garstang's walls actually belonged to the Early Bronze Age, a millennium earlier. She dated the destruction of the last great fortified city ("City IV") to the end of the Middle Bronze Age, around 1550 BC, in the context of the Egyptian campaigns that followed the expulsion of the Hyksos. For the Late Bronze Age she found only faint traces (a few tombs, an isolated building), which she partly attributed to erosion of the top of the mound. Her conclusion: at the date usually given for Joshua, Jericho was at most a modest settlement.

Radiocarbon analyses carried out since then (notably Bruins and van der Plicht, 1995) have supported a destruction in the 16th century BC. In the burnt layer, the excavators found many jars still full of charred grain, a sign that the city was destroyed quickly, without its stores being plundered over time.

Bryant Wood (1990): a minority view

In 1990 the American archaeologist Bryant Wood re-examined the pottery published by Garstang and Kenyon and proposed redating the destruction to around 1400 BC, which would bring it close to the so-called "early" biblical chronology (based on 1 Kings 6:1). He cited local pottery, Egyptian scarabs and the stratigraphy. The proposal was hotly debated and has not been accepted by most specialists, particularly in the light of the radiocarbon dates. The discussion continues in some research circles.

The Italian-Palestinian expedition (1997-2023)

Since 1997, Sapienza University of Rome, led by Lorenzo Nigro, has excavated the mound together with the Palestinian Department of Antiquities, now part of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA). Its syntheses confirm the dating of the destruction of the Middle Bronze Age city and describe a Late Bronze Age occupation ("City V") that is real but limited, identified on the edges of the mound; the 13th-century levels appear to have been largely cut away by Iron Age levelling. Settlement then resumes in Iron Age II.

The Neolithic tower and 10,000 years of settlement

The most famous monument on the mound has nothing to do with Joshua. Discovered by Kathleen Kenyon at the bottom of her great western trench, the Tower of Jericho is a stone structure about 8.5 m high and almost 9 m across at the base, with an internal staircase of 22 steps. It dates from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, around 8000 BC, six to seven thousand years before the time given for the Exodus. Together with an adjoining wall, it is one of the oldest monumental structures known; its purpose (defence, flood protection, a communal landmark or a ritual building) is still debated.

A World Heritage Site

In September 2023 the World Heritage Committee inscribed "Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan" (State of Palestine) on the World Heritage List under criteria (iii) and (iv). UNESCO highlights the site's exceptional continuity of settlement, from the Natufian to the Neolithic and then the fortified towns of the Bronze Age.

• 10th millennium BC — first Natufian occupants near the spring.
• c. 8000 BC — Neolithic village, stone wall and tower.
• 3rd millennium BC — fortified Early Bronze Age town (walls wrongly attributed to Joshua by Garstang).
• c. 1700–1550 BC — large Middle Bronze Age city with glacis and rampart, destroyed by fire.
• 1550–1200 BC — Late Bronze Age: limited occupation, largely eroded.
• Iron Age II — a new settlement, consistent with the rebuilding mentioned in 1 Kings 16:34.

What to see in Jericho today

The Tell es-Sultan archaeological park

Paths and walkways lead around the mound. You can see Kenyon's great trench and the Neolithic tower behind a protective grille, sections of Early and Middle Bronze Age walls, and the earthen glacis that surrounded the Middle Bronze Age city. Information panels, partly based on the work of the Italian-Palestinian expedition, explain the successive phases. From the top, the view takes in the oasis, the mountains of Moab to the east and the cliffs of the Judean Desert to the west.

The spring of Ein es-Sultan

At the foot of the mound, across the road, rises the spring of Ein es-Sultan, the reason Jericho has existed for ten thousand years. Tradition calls it "Elisha's Spring": according to 2 Kings 2:19-22, the prophet healed the city's water by throwing salt into it. The identification rests on tradition and on the spring's proximity to the mound.

Not to be confused: other periods

• Hisham's Palace (Khirbet al-Mafjar), a few kilometres to the north: an Umayyad complex of the 8th century AD, famous for its "Tree of Life" mosaic. It has no connection with Joshua or with Gilgal.
• The Mount of Temptation (Qarantal), rising west of the mound and reached by cable car: Christian tradition places Jesus' forty-day fast here; a Greek Orthodox monastery clings to the cliff.
• New Testament Jericho (Zacchaeus, Bartimaeus) lay further south, around the Hasmonean and Herodian palaces of Tulul Abu el-Alayiq, at the mouth of Wadi Qelt.

To place Jericho within the whole story, from Egypt to the settlement in Canaan, see the Exodus period; the next stop on the biblical journey is Shiloh, where Joshua set up the Tent of Meeting.