Tell it-Sultan
Tell es-Sultan ( Arabic تل السلطان, DMG Tall as-Sulṭān ) is an archaeological dig in Jericho in the West Bank . The importance of the site arises from the fact that the beginnings of urbanization during the Neolithic Revolution can be explored there.
location
Tell es-Sultan is located two kilometers northwest of today's city center of Jericho, at the valley station of the Jericho cable car , which leads to the monastery and the Mount of Temptation .
structure
The site of the discovery is a 21 meter high tell : layers of finds from 11,500 years on top of each other - there are 23 in total - form a hill of successive remains of a settlement that was repeatedly destroyed and the settlement was rebuilt on top of the layer of destruction.
Phases
Neolithic
- 10.-9. Millennium BC Chr. Epipalaeolithic : First traces of settlement
- 8800 BC BC to 7000 BC BC Pre-ceramic Neolithic B (PPNB). In the 4 hectare settlement was around 8050 BC. The oldest stone tower known today ( Tower of Jericho ) was built, part of the city fortifications , and in it the oldest known staircase (20 steps) in the world is proven. The people in this city lived in round adobe buildings . A stone wall was cut, which is either a city wall or a protection against flooding. The economic basis of the city was the cultivation of emmer , barley and legumes , livestock and hunting .
- 7700 BC BC to 7220 BC A settlement of the place is not proven.
- 7220 BC BC to 6400 BC End of Pre-Ceramic Neolithic B (PPNB) and Pre-Ceramic Neolithic C (PPNC). Large, rectangular adobe houses were now inhabited. A new wall was built, destroyed several times and rebuilt. Numerous useful plants and traces of sheep breeding were found in the archaeological findings . In the houses were human skulls near the entrances zweitbestattet . The faces of the skulls were partially reconstructed with plaster of paris and in some cases the eyes were replaced by shells . Outstanding pieces can be found in the Archaeological Museum in Amman .
Bronze age
- End of the Early Bronze Age III B : Around 2200 BC Chr. Destruction of the city by a fire disaster, probably by an earthquake.
- Early Bronze Age IV / Middle Bronze Age I (2150–1950 BC): settlement on a smaller scale, probably by cattle breeders and semi-nomads . Introduction of new graves with access via vertical shafts. The graves were only used by individuals during this period of settlement and were more or less lavishly furnished depending on the rank or property status of the deceased.
- Late Bronze Age I: Destruction of the city and city wall probably by an earthquake around 1550 BC Chr.
- Late Bronze Age II A: Small-scale resettlement without rebuilding the city wall up to around 1300 BC. Chr.
- Late Bronze Age II B: No settlement from 1300 BC Established until the beginning of the Iron Age (1150 BC).
archeology
The German archaeologist Ernst Sellin (1867–1946), the British archaeologist Kathleen M. Kenyon (1906–1978) and the Italian archaeologist Nicolo Marchetti (excavations 1997–2000) made outstanding contributions to the excavation of the site .
Since 2000, the University of Rome has been working with the Palestinian Authority for Antiquities and UNESCO on a concept for the preservation and sustainable development of the archaeological site as well as its tourist development as an archaeological park. The excavation site is open to the public every day.
The first excavation was in 1868 in Jericho, even if the Englishman C. Warren believed after a few attempts that the site was of no importance. In 1894 JF Bliss made some explorations at the foot of the hill. He was convinced that he had discovered the collapsed walls of Jericho, as described by Joshua 6: 1-27.
The first systematic excavations took place from 1907 to 1909 by a group led by Rostock Old Testament scholar Ernst Sellin, in which the Berlin archaeologist Carl Watzinger took a leading part. They achieved a first major leap in the development of Palestine archeology with the publication of their excavation results in accordance with the state of the art of publication at the time in 1913, even if Watzinger had to correct the dates in 1926. Due to a lack of knowledge about the ceramics of the epoch, it could not be established at first that the city was almost uninhabited at the exact time in which the Bible classified the fall of the walls. During the excavation, the early and middle Bronze Age wall sections were partially excavated. Watzinger was a member of the German-Turkish Monument Protection Command, which was active in the last two years of the First World War and was established in November 1916 with its headquarters in Damascus .
During the first British campaign, led by John Garstang , between 1930 and 1936, triggered by Watzinger's new dating proposal, the interest of the Anglo-Saxon public grew. Garstang, head of the British School of Archeology in Palestine from 1919 to 1926 , contradicted the German and dated the walls to the late Bronze Age. After all, the excavation revealed finds from the Neolithic , as well as the discovery of the extensive necropolis in the west and north-west of the settlement mound.
1952 to 1958 a second British excavation campaign took place under the direction of Kathleen Mary Kenyon . The English archaeologist succeeded in improving the methodology of the Middle Eastern excavations, so that the stratigraphy of the sections was recorded. Using the stratigraphic method, a relative chronology of the pottery could be established. A small part of the Neolithic city was also explored, and numerous finds from the necropolis and the famous tower from the late 9th millennium BC were discovered. Were excavated. From 1997 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2008 two further campaigns took place. The first was led by an Italian-Palestinian team. The Roman University of La Sapienza was in charge on the Italian side and the Antiquities Authority on the Palestinian side. Numerous finds, such as that of the city of Ebla , were published, but the team also had to deal with severe damage, such as from erosion and from the road that crossed the site. Emergency excavations were carried out there. The focus of the excavations was the Bronze Age.
The political framework allowed only limited cooperation between the two institutions, but in 2005 the University of Rome held an international congress entitled “Tell es-Sultan in the Context of the Jordan Valley. Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development ”in Ariha, today's Jericho. One of the goals was to set up an archaeological park in cooperation with UNESCO, more precisely the UNESCO office in Ramallah. The results were published in the ROSAPAT series the following year. There also appeared in the fourth volume the report on a similar congress in March 2007. After Bethlehem, the Jericho site is the second World Heritage site on Palestinian territory and also the first pilot project for the establishment of a nature and archeology park. Finally, a workshop took place in 2008 to make the necessary preparations. In addition, a website for the project was created under the direction of the Palestinian Antiquities Authority and coordinated by the Italian Mission.
During the last excavation campaign, an Egyptian scarab from the 19th century BC was found. In which the contemporary name Jerichos with "Ruha" is handed down. Local tradition knows Jericho as ar-Riha.
literature
- Kathleen M. Kenyon: Digging up Jericho. London 1957.
- Kathleen M. Kenyon: Excavations at Jericho. Vol. 3: The architecture and stratigraphy of the Tell . British School of Archeology, Jerusalem, London 1981. ISBN 0-9500542-3-2 ; Vol. 5: The pottery phases of the tell and other finds . London 1983. ISBN 0-9500542-5-9
- Nicolo Marchetti: A Century of Excavations on the Spring Hill at Tell es-Sultan, Ancient Jericho: A Reconstruction of Its Stratigraphy . In: Manfred Bietak: The synchronization of civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC III: Proceedings of the SCIEM 2000 - 2nd EuroConference, Vienna 28th of May - 1st of June 2003 . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2007, ISBN 3-7001-3527-0 , pp. 295–321.
- Gotthard GG Reinhold: The excavations of Tell es-Sultan . In: At sunrise on the Tell . Greiner, Remshalden 2003, ISBN 3-935383-24-X , pp. 27-68 (still without the excavation results by Nicolo Marchetti)
- Adel Yahya: Jericho. History, archaeological and religious sites . Ramallah 2005.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ This and the following according to: Storia dell'esplorazione archeologica a Tell es-Sultan / Gerico ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Project website of the Sapienza University of Rome.
- ^ Ernst Sellin, Carl Watzinger: Jericho. The results of the excavations , JC Hinrichs 1913.
- ^ John Garstang: The Foundations of Biblical History. Joshua and Judges and Jericho: City and Necropolis. 5th Report , Oxford University Press 1935.
- ↑ Lorenzo Nigro, Hamdan Taha (ed.): Tell Es-Sultan / Jericho in the Context of the Jordan Valley. Site Management, Conservation, and Sustainable Development , Rome 2006.
- ↑ Lorenzo Nigro, Gassia Artin (ed.): Byblos and Jericho in the Early Bronze I. Social Dynamics and Cultural Interactions , Rome 2007.
- ↑ Tell es-Sultan / Jericho
Coordinates: 31 ° 52 ′ 18.2 " N , 35 ° 26 ′ 40.4" E