The first excavations of the site were made by Charles Warren in 1868. Jericho's Arabic name, Arīḥā, means ' fragrant ' and also has its roots in Canaanite Reaẖ. Jericho's name in Modern Hebrew, Yeriẖo, is generally thought to derive from the Canaanite word rēḥ ' fragrant ', but other theories hold that it originates in the Canaanite word Yaraḥ ' moon ' or the name of the lunar deity Yarikh, for whom the city was an early centre of worship. In 2023, the archaeological site in the center of the city, known as Tell es-Sultan / Old Jericho, was inscribed in UNESCO's list as a World Heritage Site in the State of Palestine, and described as the “oldest fortified city in the world”. Jericho is described in the Bible as the 'city of palm trees'. Copious springs in and around the city have attracted human habitation for thousands of years. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years (to 9000 BCE), almost to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history. Jericho is among the oldest cities in the world, and it is also the city with the oldest known defensive wall. įrom the end of the era of Mandatory Palestine, the city was annexed and ruled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 and, with the rest of the West Bank, has been subject to Israeli occupation since 1967 administrative control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. Jericho ( / ˈ dʒ ɛr ɪ k oʊ/ JERR-ik-oh Arabic: أريحا Arīḥā Arabic pronunciation: ⓘ Hebrew: יְרִיחוֹ Yərīḥō) is a city in the West Bank it is the administrative seat of the Jericho Governorate of the State of Palestine.

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