• from Kathleen Kenyon in Stern et. al. (1993 v.2)

The town of Jericho is situated on the wide plain of the Jordan Valley, about 10 km ( 6 mi.) north of the Dead Sea and close to the steep cliffs that fringe the valley to the west(map reference 193.142). At a depth of 250 m below sea level, it is the lowest town on the surface of the earth. This location, shut in by mountain walls to the east and west, has a climate that is tropical in summer and usually mild in winter. The amount of rainfall is small, about 140 mm a year, most of which falls in a few violent downpours - in some years there is virtually none. The flourishing agriculture of which the area is capable is dependent on the spring known as Elisha's Well, or 'Ein es-Sultan. With irrigation based on the spring, the valley's alluvial soil can produce crops of almost every kind, tropical and temperate in habitat - dates, green vegetables, or wheat. In times of expansion, the waters of 'Ein es-Sultan can be supplemented by those of'Ein ed-Duk (Na'aran), some 3 km (2 mi.) to the northwest, which, as in the Early Arab period and today, can be brought to Jericho by aqueduct. With irrigation, an extensive oasis can be created; but when it is neglected, the area reverts to the parched scrub of the adjacent valley, as is seen in nineteenth-century photographs taken in the immediate neighborhood of 'Ein es-Sultan. Destruction of the irrigation system by enemies, or the interruption of the water supply as a result of the earth movements to which the Jordan Valley is liable, may account for the periodic abandonments of the ancient site that excavation has revealed.

• from Thomas A. Holland in Meyers et. al. (1997)

The first references to Jericho in the Hebrew Bible are in the books of Numbers (22:1, 26:3), where the encampment of Israel is described across the river from the town; of Deuteronomy (34:1, 3), where the site is named; and of Joshua (2:1-3, 5:13-6:26), where it is recorded that spies were sent to examine the city and that the town was surrounded and conquered. The modern name of the mound, Tell es-Sultan, is the medieval name given to the site because it is located at the spring of 'Am es-Sultan ("Elisha's fountain"). During the period of the Judges, when the site was purportedly occupied by Eglon of Moab, the town was also known as the "city of palm trees" (Jgs. 3:13).

• from Gideon Foerster in Stern et. al. (1993 v.2)

Historians of the Hellenistic-Roman period (Strabo, Pliny, and Josephus) stress Jericho's economic and military importance. In the tropical climate prevailing in the vale, the groves of Jericho produced high-quality dates and various medicinal plants and spices, particularly balsam, which thrives on intensive irrigation. Because of these products, famed throughout antiquity, Josephus considered the valley a veritable paradise (War IV, 469).

Because it was situated at the eastern approaches to Judea, the Jericho district was also of great strategic importance. This was the main reason fortresses were established here at various times. These served also to defend the plantations that constituted an important source of revenue for all rulers of the area. Jericho was a district headquarters during the Persian period. Later rulers retained this administrative pattern. It seems that the Jericho district already constituted a portion of the private domain of the ruler at the time of Alexander the Great's conquest. It became the property of the conqueror and his heirs, being "spear-won" land, according to Hellenistic custom. Consequently, the Jericho area was not urbanized and thus did not prejudice either the king's revenue or his estates.

The Syrian general Bacchides fortified Jericho (I Mace. 9:50; Josephus, Antiq. XIII, 15). On the basis of the excavations at Tulul Abu el-' Alayiq, these fortifications are identified with the remains of two towers from the Hellenistic period. These are probably the forts of Threx and Taurus that were irrigation installations until the valley was replete with ponds and gardens. Surveys and excavations have brought to light five aqueducts that distributed water throughout the city and the valley.

Upon Herod's death, his slave Simeon declared himself king and set fire to his master's palace and other edifices (War II, 57). Archelaus, after succeeding to power, reconstructed the palace magnificently (Antiq. XVII, 340). Apparently, no alteration occurred in the status of Jericho when, on the extinction of the Herodian dynasty, it became an estate of the Roman emperor. Throughout the Second Temple period, Jericho was occupied by a Jewish community, which, as may be concluded from Talmudic sources, continued to exist there in the post destruction period. In the fourth century CE, Jericho contained a Christian community with a bishop. Christian literature, in accounts up to the sixth century, mentions five local bishops by name. The city quarreled perpetually with its Jewish rival at Na'aran (Lam. Rab. 1: 17).

• from Thomas A. Holland in Meyers et. al. (1997)

Because of its biblical connections, the site of Jericho inspired considerable attention for nearly fifteen hundred years before the advent of modern archaeological research. Many pilgrims and travelers visited the area during the first millennium CE, the first written account, in 333 CE, being that of the Pilgrim of Bordeau (described in Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099-1185, by John Wilkinson, with Joyce Hill and W. F. Ryan, London, 1988, p. 4 [JW: bookmarked to the page at archive.org]). It was not until 1868, however, that the first archaeological investigation of the mound was undertaken by Charles Warren, on behalf of the British Palestine Exploration Fund. Warren excavated east-west trenches on the mound and sank 2.4 sq. m shafts 6.1 m into the earth (Warren, 1869, pp. 14-16) . Although Warren dug through the EB town wall and found artifacts, he did not consider that the excavated material remains (pottery and stone mortars) were very important occupational finds for dating successive historical periods. Warren's conclusion regarding Jericho and other similar sites was: "The fact that in the Jordan valley these mounds generally stand at the mouths of the great wadies, is rather in favour of their having been the sites of ancient guard-houses or watch-towers" (Warren, 1869, p. 210).

The site was more seriously investigated when Claude R. Conder and H. H. Kitchener made a topographical survey of Jericho and its surroundings, published in The Survey of Western Palestine, vol. 3 (London, 1883). The second archaeological expedition to the site was conducted by an Austro-German team directed by Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger between 1907 and 1909 and in 1911, under the sponsorship of the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft); the results appeared in Jericho: Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen (Leipzig, 1913). The large portion of the mound excavated revealed much of the Middle Bronze Age glacis, which originally surrounded the town, as well as portions of the EB town walls. Houses belonging to the Israelite occupation of the town (eleventh-early sixth centuries BCE) were discovered on the southeast side of the mound. Controversy over the dating and capture of Jericho by Joshua has centered around two main schools of thought. The first theory conforms essentially to the biblical view that the Israelite occupation occurred with military attacks on Canaanite cities (a view primarily maintained by William Foxwell Albright, G. Ernest Wright, and John Bright). The second theory is that the conquest was a gradual and peaceful assimilation process that occurred in about 1200 BCE, at the beginning of the Iron Age (a view held by Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth and more recently discussed by Manfred Weippert [1971], and Israel Finkelstein [1988]).

In an effort to obtain further archaeological evidence concerning this question, excavations were conducted at Jericho from 1930 to 1936 by John Garstang. He led the Marston Melchett Expedition on behalf of the University of Liverpool and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Garstang excavated many areas on the mound and also located a number of MB and LB tombs in the necropolis associated with the site (Garstang, 1932, pp. 18-22, 41-54; 1933a PP- 4-42; Bienkowski, 1986, pp. 32-102). Garstang originally claimed that the Israelites had indeed destroyed Jericho on the evidence of fallen walls he dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but he later revised their destruction to a much earlier period. Although the Joshua controversy was not solved, Garstang did reveal the very early Mesolithic and Neolithic stages of occupation on the site.

In an effort to resolve the Joshua problem and to clarify the results of Garstang's excavations, Kathleen M. Kenyon directed the most recent archaeological work at Jericho (1952-1958), sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund, and the British Academy in collaboration with the American School of Oriental Research (now Albright Institute) in Jerusalem and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (Kenyon, 1957, i960, 1965, 1981; Kenyon and Holland, 1982, 1983). The Kenyon expedition excavated a large number of tombs in the necropolis dating from the Proto-Urban period (c. 3400- 3100 BCE) to the Roman period. Although much of the ancient mound had already been dug by the previous two expeditions, Kenyon was able to plot three main trenches on the north (trench II), west (trench I), and south (trench III) slopes of the tell in order to obtain comparative stratigraphical cross-sections of the main fortification systems of different historical periods. She also excavated a number of large squares inside tlie walls of the town in order to crosscheck the results of the former excavations as well as to expose larger areas of the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods of occupation; these squares are lettered and numbered

• A I—II (grid E4-5, on the highest part of the tell, 24 m high)
• D I
• D II (grid H4-5, east end of trench I)
• E I-V (grid E-F6-7, northeast side of the tell)
• F I (grid G4-5, northeast end of trench I)
• H I-VI (grid H6-7 , east side of the mound above the spring)
• L I (grid G5-6 , center of the mound)
• M I (grid F-G5 , overlapping the EB town wall on the northwestern side of the mound)

• Annotated Satellite Image (google) of
  Annotated Satellite Image (google) of the Jericho area
  
  Used with permission from BibleWalks.com
  the Jericho area from biblewalks.com
• Annotated Satellite Image (google) of
  Annotated Satellite Image (google) of the Wadi Qelt area
  
  Used with permission from BibleWalks.com
  the Wadi Qelt area from biblewalks.com
• Jericho environs in Google Earth
  Jericho environs
  
  click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth
• Jericho environs on govmap.gov.il
  Jericho environs
  
  click on image to explore this site on a new tab in govmap.gov.il

• Location Map from Stern et. al. (1993 v.2)
  Map of the main sites at Jericho and its environs, Roman-Byzantine period.
  
  Stern et. al. (1993 v.2)
• Fig. 1 - Location Map
  Figure 1
  
  Location Map
  
  Netzer (1975)
  from Netzer (1975)

Alfonsi, L., et al. (2012). "Archaeoseismic Evidence of Two Neolithic (7,500–6,000 B.C.) Earthquakes at Tell es-Sultan, Ancient Jericho, Dead Sea Fault." Seismological Research Letters 83(4): 639-648.

Kenyon, Kathleen M. “Excavations at Jericho.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 84, no. 1/2, 1954, pp. 103–10. - at JSTOR

Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099-1185, by John Wilkinson, with Joyce Hill and W. F. Ryan, London, 1988 - can be borrowed with a free account from archive.org

Hasmonean and Herodian Jericho at BibleWalks.com

Jordan-Jericho at BibleWalks.com

Wadi Qelt at BibleWalks.com

Researching Jericho by Bryant G. Wood PhD at Associates for Biblical Research - apologist site - differing chronology

Bar-Yosef, Ofer. "The Walls of Jericho: An Alternative Interpretation." Current Anthropology 27 (1986): 157-162 .

Bienkowski, Piotr. Jericho in the Late Bronze Age. Warminster, 19S6. The most comprehensive treatment to date of the Late Bronze Age at Jericho, based on the excavated material of both Garstang and Kenyon.

Bienkowski, Piotr. "Jericho Was Destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, Not the Late Bronze Age." Biblical Archaeology Review 16.5 (1990): 45-46, 69. Recent archaeological treatments of Jericho and tlie "Joshua problem."

Finkelstein, Israel. The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. Jerusalem, 1988. Recent treatment of different theories concerning the evidence for the Israelite settlement in Canaan,

Franken, Hendrichs J. In Search of the Jericho Potters: Ceramics from the Iron Age and from the Neolithicum. Amsterdam, 1974. The best technical study of the manufacture of Iron Age Israelite pottery.

Garstang, John. "Jericho: City and Necropolis." Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 19 (1932): 3-22, 35-54; 20 (1933): 3-42; 21 (1934): 99-136; 22 (1935): 143-168 ; 23 (1936): 67-76. Final scientific reports on the Garstang expedition to Jericho.

Garstang, John, and J. B, E. Garstang. The Story of Jericho. 2d ed. London, 1948. The best general discussion of Garstang's excavations; well illustrated.

Holland, Thomas A. "Jericho." In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, pp. 723-737, 739-740. New York, 1992. The author's previous and most up-to-date general discussion of the archaeological finds from the Kenyon expedition, with fuller bibliography.

Kenyon, Kathleen M . Digging Up Jericho. London, 1957. The most comprehensive general discussion of the archaeology and history of Jericho relating primarily to the author's excavations; well illustrated.

Kenyon, Kathleen M . Excavations at Jericho, vol. 1, The Tombs Excavated in 1952-54. London, i960. Final excavation report.

Kenyon, Kathleen M . Excavations at Jericho, vol. 2, The Tombs Excavated in 1955-58. London, 1965. Final excavation report.

Kenyon, Kathleen M . Excavations at Jericho, vol. 3, The Architecture and Stratigraphy of the Tell. 2 vols. Edited by Thomas A, Holland. London, 1981. Final excavation report with detailed plans, sections, and photographs of the occupation phases, as well as specialist reports on radiocarbon dates and the human skeletal remains.

Kenyon, Kathleen M. , and Thomas A. Holland. Excavations at. Jericho, vol. 4, The Pottery Type Series and Other Finds. London, 1982. Final excavation report, which includes drawings of the key pottery forms from each period and specialist reports on various objects.

Kenyon, Kathleen M. , and Thomas A. Holland. Excavations at Jericho, vol. 5, The Pottery Phases of the Tell and Other Finds. London, 1983. Final excavation report, which includes drawings of pottery forms from each phase of occupation and specialist reports on various objects, studies of plant, charcoal, and animal remains, and additional radiocarbon dates for Jericho.

Warren, Charles. "Note on the Mounds at Jericho." Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 1 (1869): 209-210.

Weippert, Helga, and Manfred Weippert. "Jericho in der Eisenzeit." Zeitschrift des Deulschen Paldstina-Vereins 92 (1976): 105-148 .

Weippert, Manfred. The Settlement, of the Israelite Tribes in Palestine: A Critical Survey of the Recent Scholarly Debate. London, 1971 . Standard reference work for assessing the Israelite "peaceful invasion" theory of Canaan.

Wood, Bryant G. "Dating Jericho's Destruction: Bienkowski Is Wrong on All Counts." Biblical Archaeology Review 16.5 (1990): 45, 47-49, 68-69. Must be used cautiously with regard to Bienkowski's 1990 rebuttal.

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