Vetrina 1 - Jericho
Tell es-Sultan / Jericho: 10,000 years of history in Palestine
Tell es-Sultan, in the Jordan Valley 7 km from the northern shore of the Dead Sea, is one of the richest archaeological sites in the entire Near East. La Sapienza was the first University to undertake excavations jointly with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Palestine, starting in 1997 a Pilot Project, still in progress, for the study, recovery and scientific and tourist enhancement of ancient Jericho. The excavations of the Italian-Palestinian Mission, involved 11 areas and were concentrated on the cities of the Ancient and Middle Bronze Age, bringing to light the articulated fortifications (at the origin of the ancient biblical tradition merged into the account of the Book of Joshua, with the conquest of the city to the sound of ram's horns), various sectors of the town and, on the Spring Mound, the superimposed royal palaces of the two eras.
Neolithic Jericho (8500-4600 BC)
The extraordinary flowering of Jericho at the dawn of the Neolithic revolution earned it the epithet of "the oldest city in the world", having been surrounded by walls and equipped with a monumental circular tower already in the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic A (8500-7500 BC) . In Jericho, Man took his first steps, domesticating plants and animals, inventing modular architecture (brick) and developing his first social and ideological organization, representing his ancestors for the first time. Finally, the introduction of ceramics (Ceramic Neolithic, 6000-4600 BC) is accompanied by a sort of overall cultural regression of the settlement.
Jericho in the Bronze Age: Ruha of the Canaanites (3500-1500 BC)
The city of the Bronze Age, one of the best examples of secondary urbanization of the Levant, was defended by imposing circuits of walls and embankments that enclosed the source of 'Ain es-Sultan, a real river of water of 4000 liters per minute that fed the entire Oasis. In the center of the city were the major temple and, on the slope overlooking the source and the oasis, the Royal Palace, unearthed by the Sapienza, under which, in a princely tomb, a scarab was found which revealed the name Cananaic of Jericho written in Egyptian hieroglyphics: Ruha.
The necropolis
In the plateau to the north and west of the site a vast necropolis extended from the Early Bronze Age I, with family tombs (individual only in the Intermediate Bronze / Early Bronze IV) reflecting the long and thriving life of a community that developed around intensive agriculture and control of fundamental raw materials of the Dead Sea depression: salt, bitumen, sulfur.