What were the walls of Jericho made of?

Answer 1

Jericho is a very ancient city and it had high walls on several occasions long prior to the late bronze age, the period when the Israelite army is supposed to have caused the walls to fall. However, the city had been abandoned centuries before the time attributed to Joshua, and there were no walls for him to breach. Scholars say that at most there was just a small mud-brick village on the site of the former city. So, on the basis of archaeological evidence, it is not possible to state any dimensions for the walls during the fifteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE - the relevant period.

AnswerThe city of Jericho was important enough to have two walls. The outside one was six feet thick and the inside one was twelve feet thick.

Answer 2

Over a period of some thousands of years, Jericho has several walls, with the construction methods improving over time and including bricks and cut stone. At the time attributed to the Israelite conquest, Jericho had long been abandoned and no wall was left standing. Archaeologists say there was only a small mud-brick village on the site of the former city.

Answer 3

The ancient city of Jericho was built, abandoned and rebuilt several times over many centuries. It was finally abandoned abut 1500 BCE at the time a severe earthquake damaged its outer walls, and not rebuilt until long after the establisment of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. At the time attributed to Joshua and the military conquest of Canaan, there was, at most, a mud-brick village on the site of the former city, but no defensive walls.

Answer

Now the city of Jericho was built upon a large mound of earth surrounded by an embankment with a stone retaining wall at its base. On top of this 12-15 foot high retaining wall was another mudbrick wall that was 6 foot thick and about 25 feet tall. Also, at the crest of this embankment was another similarly sized wall whose base was about 45 feet above the ground level outside the retaining wall. So if you were standing in front of the retaining wall, it would appear to you that the wall was over 70 feet tall.

Answer 4

Indeed, it is difficult to align the evidence in the book of Joshua with the archeological evidence.

We can start with the positive evidence. This is that which supports the argument that the Israelites settled Canaan a little before 1200 BC. Indeed, we know for sure that there was a rural-based group known as Israel in Canaan a few years before that date. But the claim that Joshua destroyed the city walls is not supported by the archeological evidence discovered so far.

In dealing with this it is necessary to understand that the early books in the Old Testament are composite. Some parts were written early, and some parts written later. Some parts represent the writing down of oral traditions, and it is probable that some parts were based on written records (certainly not in Hebrew, but probably in the Akkadian script used at that time). So at best, we have mixed sources.

If there was a battle of Jericho, which is quite likely, it could not have been against a walled city, but it could have been against the people living in the ruins of the city, even living in the derilict walls of the city. For example, Rahab, the prostitute, is reported to have been living in the walls (and later escaped with her family from her wall-based home). In such a situation, the Israelites could have marched around the city for a week, and finally launched an attack, just as it is reported in Joshua.

At any event, we know that it is unlikely that the walls fell down at that time: they were already down, and had been down for hundreds of years. It is more likely that the story element dealing with the walls falling down was a story element added later, as a means of explaining how it was that the walls of Jericho were in ruin. They continued to be in this state for further hundreds of years, so there was plenty of opportunity for this delicious morsel to be added to the story: what storyteller could resist it?

When we look at the story of the battle of Jericho there is no difficulty here for the Christian with this approach to the historical evidence. The Israelites told and retold the great story of their foundations. It can be accepted that some story elements have been elaborated over time, and it might have been they even misunderstood some parts of the historical sources they were using. Nevertheless, they were convinced that God had aided them in founding their nation, and that comes out in the story quite well. Both an elaborated story and an eyewitness account can be used to make a spiritual point, as Jesus demonstrated with his use of parables. They are just different genres, even though in our book based culture we make a sharper distinction between history and "historical novels" than would have been the case where stories were generally relayed orally.

Answer 5

A:According to The Bible, Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho around 1400 BCE, with the help of God. According to archaeologists, an earthquake, that caused damage right across the region around 1550 BCE, brought down the walls, resulting in Jericho being abandoned at that time. At the time of the supposed military conquest by the Israelites under Joshua, around 1400 BCE, a small, unwalled village had been built on the site. AnswerAssuming one is talking about the wall which fell in Joshua's day around 1400 BC:

In the account in the Bible there is no record of how the walls came down just the record of the fact that they did. It is also known that a fault line runs through that area and so it is assumed by many, including archaeologist John Garstang, that an earthquake caused it. The Bible records the obedience of the Israelites to God's command and also that they shouted just prior to the walls falling down, although this is not stated as the cause of the walls falling. Nor is it stated in the account that God made the walls fall down.

See Joshua chapter 6.

Answer 6

A:

The city of Jericho was rebuilt several times, as were its walls, until the city was finally abandoned around 1600 BCE. The height of the walls of Jericho therefore depends on the century about which we are asking.

The Book of Joshua says that Jericho was surrounded by high walls, but does not say how high the were - these are the walls that the Israelites supposedly caused to fall down by the sound of trumpets. The author of Joshua simply assumed the walls to exist perhaps two centuries after the city had been abandoned, because he had no understanding of what was by then already ancient history.

Answer 7

One of the most famous episodes in the biblical conquest of Canaan was the assault on the city of Jericho. Joshua had the priests march around the city walls and Yahweh caused the walls to collapse, allowing the Hebrews to storm the city. However, we now know from archaeologists that there had been no city at Jericho for many centuries before the arrival of the Hebrews. With no city, there were of course no walls.

Archaeologists have uncovered successive layers of walled settlements that had been built and then abandoned over the centuries. The reason for this is that the Canaanite hinterland that the Hebrews had come to settle were relatively arid and were only settled when conditions elsewhere forced people to look for secure places where food could be grown, even if with difficulty. Once better options were available, the highland sites were abandoned. The successive layers have been dated carefully and none fits a date close to the second half of the second millennium BCE.

Long before the time attributed to the Hebrew conquest of Jericho, there was a remarkably similar attack by a Canaanite king on the city of Megiddo. As in the biblical account, he marched his troops around the walls each day, making as much din as possible but not attempting an attack. On each occasion, the defendants rallied to the wall and followed the enemy aroud the wall, prepared for the attack that never seemed to come. Eventually, the defendants became careless of rushing to the wall every time they heard the din. At this point the attacking troops, under cover of the din they had been making, attacked and breached the walls before the defendants could mobilise. Arguably, this historical event was the inspiration for the story of the Hebrew attack on Jericho.

Answer 8

The walls were rebuilt several times, so the answer would depend upon the exact historical era. Jericho is one of the most ancient cities, with at least 20 successive layers of habitation. See also:

Evidence of the conquest of Jericho

Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible

Answer 9

According to the book of Joshua, the Israelites marched around the walls for seven days. On the seventh day, the blew their trumpets and the walls fell down.

The facts of history are a little less romantic. The walls fell down about 1550 BCE and the city was abandoned, at a time when an earthquake is believed to have affected a wide area of the Levant. So, by the time Joshua would have arrived, there was no city, just a small and undefended mud-brick village on the site of Jericho.

Answer 10

The Israelites marched around the city walls and blew the shofar-trumpets each day for seven days as commanded by God in Joshua ch.6. See also:

The reliability of the Hebrew Bible

Evidence of the conquest of Jericho

More about Joshua