JERICHO (Heb. férthó, Ar. Erihah). — A Palestinian city, the first encountered by the Israelites in the land of Canaan after crossing the Jordan, which they conquered and destroyed with divine intervention (Jos. 6). It was located, as recent excavations have shown, 2 km north of the present village, on Tell es-Sultān.
Assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin (Jos. 16, 17), the oasis was repopulated under the name of “city of palms” (Jos. 18, 21; Judg. 3, 19; II Par. 28, 25). Eglon, king of Moab, made it his residence for 18 years (Judg. 3, 13); David’s messengers stopped there until the insult inflicted on them by the Ammonites was avenged (II Sam. 10, 5). Around 800 BC, a certain Hiel of Bethel rebuilt the walls of the ancient city, thereby bringing upon his two sons the curse foretold by Joshua (I Reg. 16, 34). In the Israelite city, a school of prophets flourished, often visited by Elijah and Elisha (II Reg. 2, 1-22). The population was deported and the city plundered during the Assyrian invasion (II Reg. 25, 5; Ier. 39, 5; 52, 8), but it prospered again after the exile, and its inhabitants contributed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Est. 2, 34; Neh. 7, 35).
Because of its splendid gardens, whose balm trees provided a considerable revenue, Mark Antony gave it to Queen Cleopatra, who sold it to Herod; the latter enhanced its splendor by moving the city center 2 km south of the Canaanite site in the Wādi el-Qelt, with the construction of villas, a hippodrome, an amphitheater, and pools (Flavius Josephus, Bell. Jud., XIII, 6-8).
During the Passover festivals, Jericho was a gathering place for Jews traveling from Galilee and Perea to Jerusalem for the feasts. Jesus also passed through several times; on his final journey, he healed the two blind men and accepted Zacchaeus’ invitation (Mt. 20, 29; Lc. 19, 1-5).
In AD 70, the city was sacked and destroyed. It became a bishopric in 325 and, in the Byzantine era, was populated by monastic communities (laurae), whose monks lived under the direction of Euthymius and St. Sabas, extending south-east of the spring of Elisha. The Madaba map depicts it enclosed among palm trees. After the earthquake of 571, Justinian repaired the churches of the Theotokos, St. Elisha, and the great hospice for pilgrims (Procopius, De aedif., V, 9).
With the advent of the Muslims, it steadily declined, and by the 12th century it was a heap of ruins. The Crusaders rebuilt the city east of the first two sites, on the location of the present village, which has since developed and flourished again in recent decades.
Excavations at Tell es-Sultān, directed by a German team in 1907-1909 and resumed by British archaeologists in 1930-36 with soundings down to virgin soil, have made it possible to trace the city’s evolution from its very origins (prehistoric periods: Mesolithic and Chalcolithic). The chronology of the walls has been classified as follows: the city founded around 3000 was confined within a massive wall (A) on the northern part of the Tell; from 2100 to 1900 it occupied the hilltop for about 2 hectares, enclosed by a wall (B) of mudbrick with stone foundations; from 1900 to 1600 it expanded from 2 to 5 hectares with a powerful wall (C), reinforced by a glacis at the foot of the hill and including the spring. This was the city’s most prosperous period, marked by a Hyksos palace, Egyptian and Hyksos scarabs, and bronze weapons and tools. For unknown reasons, the walls were dismantled, and the city shrank back to the hilltop, protected by a wall (D) built around 1500, parallel to B but with different construction techniques. It was destroyed by a catastrophe around 1400, according to Garstang, director of the excavations, or around 1250, according to Fr. Vincent. It then appears to have been repopulated in the 9th–8th centuries (I Reg. 16, 34) and again in the Hellenistic period.
About 250 m from the Tell, some 2,800 pottery shards from all periods corresponding to the city’s history have been collected in the metropolis.
ARCHAEOLOGY. — In early Christian art, the city of Jericho is depicted in the biblical cycle of Santa Maria Maggiore, in the scene of its conquest by Joshua; part of the walls is shown collapsing. In the Joshua Scroll (Vatican Library), Jericho is personified as a young woman, seated and thoughtful. For the miracle performed by the Lord on the blind men of Jericho, V. BLIND: II. The blind in Christian archaeology.
In Jericho in 1910, a mosaic pavement was discovered bearing the inscription of a priest and hegumen named Cyriacus, founder of the oratory of the martyr St. George, benefactor of the New Church of the Mother of God in Jerusalem, which had been dedicated by Justinian in
1941. He died on December 11, 566 (F
M. Abel, *Inscriptions de Jericho et de Scitopolis*, in *Revue biblique*, new series, 8 [1911], p. 288).
Jericho — Gideon at the taking of Jericho. Wall painting in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (5th century).
JERICHO — GERMAN RELIGION
(folder by Don A. Penna C.R.L.)
JERICHO — Greek monastery on the mountainside of the Mount of Temptations near Jericho.