{
  "author": "ChronologiaOS editorial guides",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "department": "Cities & Civilizations",
  "department_id": "CITIES",
  "epistemic_label": "Source guide",
  "epistemic_status": "SOURCE_GUIDE",
  "period": "c. 10,500 BCE onward",
  "place": "Jordan Valley, Palestine",
  "public_sources": [
    {
      "publisher": "UNESCO",
      "title": "Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan",
      "type": "Heritage reference record",
      "url": "https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1687/"
    }
  ],
  "publication_state": "PUBLIC",
  "read_time": "3 min read",
  "sections": [
    {
      "body": "UNESCO inscribed Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan in 2023: an oval mound beside the spring of Ain es-Sultan whose deposits begin around 10,500 BCE and whose stratigraphy preserves twenty-nine phases of occupation.",
      "heading": "Start with the tell",
      "source": 0
    },
    {
      "body": "The record points to two contexts. Monumental architecture and shared structures of the ninth to eighth millennium BCE illustrate the shift to permanent settlement in the Fertile Crescent; Middle Bronze Age remains show a large Canaanite city-state with innovative rampart fortifications. The same mound tells both stories, thousands of years apart.",
      "heading": "Two stories in one place",
      "source": 0
    },
    {
      "body": "A famous site attracts claims that borrow its oldest date for its youngest walls. Keep each feature with its phase. Ask which structure a date actually belongs to before letting 'the walls of Jericho' mean one thing.",
      "heading": "Try the research habit"
    },
    {
      "body": "The evaluation also noted modern encroachment around the mound. How does the condition of a site's surroundings affect what future excavation can still learn?",
      "heading": "A question to carry forward"
    }
  ],
  "short_title": "Whose walls are the walls of Jericho?",
  "slug": "jericho-tell-es-sultan-eleven-thousand-years-in-one-mound",
  "summary": "Tell es-Sultan preserves twenty-nine phases of occupation beside a spring. Learn why a site's oldest date must not be borrowed for its youngest walls.",
  "tags": [
    "Jericho",
    "Tell es-Sultan",
    "Neolithic",
    "Bronze Age",
    "Levant"
  ],
  "title": "Jericho: eleven thousand years in one mound."
}