Jericho

JERICHO (Hebrew Yērīkō, Arabic Eriha). - A Palestinian city, the first that the Israelites encountered in the land of Canaan after the crossing of the Jordan and, with divine intervention, conquered and destroyed (Josh. 6). It was situated, as the recent excavations have shown, 2 km north of the present-day village, on Tell es-Sultan.

Assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. 16, 17), the oasis was repopulated under the name of "city of palms" (Josh. 18, 21; Judg. 3, 19; II Chron. 28, 25). Eglon king of Moab made it his residence for 18 years (Judg. 3, 13); David's envoys stayed there until the affront done to them by the Ammonites had disappeared (II Sam. 10, 5). Around 800 B.C. a certain Hiel of Bethel rebuilt the walls of the ancient city, bringing down upon his two sons the curse foretold by Joshua (I Kings 16, 34). In the Israelite city a school of prophets flourished, often visited by Elijah and Elisha (II Kings 2, 1-22). After the population had been deported and the city plundered at the time of the Assyrian invasion (II Kings 25, 5; Jer. 39, 5; 52, 8), it prospered again after the exile and its inhabitants contributed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Ezra 2, 34; Neh. 7, 35).

Because of its splendid gardens, whose balsam trees constituted a considerable revenue, Mark Antony made a gift of it to Queen Cleopatra, who sold it to Herod, who increased its splendor by moving the center of the city 2 km south of the Canaanite one to the Wadi el-Qelt, with the construction of villas, a hippodrome, an amphitheater, and pools (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Iud., XIII, 6-8).

During the Passover feasts, J. was the gathering place of the Jews who from Galilee and Perea traveled to Jerusalem for the feasts. Jesus too passed through it several times; on his last journey he performed there the healing of the two blind men and accepted the invitation of Zacchaeus (Mt. 20, 29; Lk. 19, 1-5).

In 70 A.D. the city was plundered and destroyed. An episcopal see in 325, in the Byzantine era it was populated with laurae, whose monks lived under the direction of St. Euthymius and St. Sabas, and it extended to the southeast of Elisha's spring. The Madaba map represents it enclosed among palm groves. After the earthquake of 571 Justinian had the churches of the Theotokos and of St. Elisha and the great hospice for pilgrims repaired (Procopius, De aedif., V, 9).

With the coming of the Muslims it steadily declined and in the 12th century it was a heap of ruins. The Crusaders rebuilt the city east of the first two on the site of the present-day village, which has returned to develop and flourish in the last twenty years.

The excavations of Tell es-Sultan, directed by a German society in 1907-1909 and resumed by English archaeologists in 1930-36 with soundings down to virgin soil, have made it possible to trace the evolution of the city from its prehistoric origins (Mesolithic and Eneolithic period). The chronology of the walls has been classified as follows. The city founded in 3000 was confined with a massive wall (A) in the northern part of the Tell; from 2100 to 1900 it occupied the crest of the hill for about 2 hectares, enclosed by a brick wall (B) with stone foundations; from 1900 to 1600 it extended from 2 to 5 hectares with a powerful wall (C) reinforced by a scarp, at the foot of the hill and including the spring as well. This is the most prosperous period of the city, characterized by a Hyksos palace, Egyptian and Hyksos scarabs, and bronze weapons and tools. For unknown reasons, once the walls had been dismantled, the city withdrew again onto the crest, protected by a wall (D) built around 1500 and parallel to wall B but with a different technique. It was destroyed by a cataclysm around 1400, according to Garstang, director of the excavations, or around 1250, according to Fr. Vincent. It then appears repopulated in the 9th-10th century (I Kings 16, 34) and also in the Hellenistic era.

At about 250 m from the Tell, about 2800 examples of pottery from all the periods corresponding to the history of the city have been collected in the metropolis.

Donato Baldi

ARCHAEOLOGY

In ancient Christian art the city of J. is represented in St. Mary Major in the biblical cycle, in the scene of its conquest by Joshua; the fall of a part of the walls is noticeable there. In the Joshua Roll (Vatican Library), J. is personified by a young woman seated and pensive. For the miracle worked by the Lord on the blind men of Jericho, v. BLIND MAN: II. The blind in Christian archaeology.

At J. in 1910 a mosaic pavement was found containing 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 543. He died on 11 Dec. 566 (F.-M. Abel, Inscriptions de Jéricho et de Scitopolis, in Revue biblique, new series, 8 [1911], p. 288).

Enrico Josi