August 18, 2019 Comments Off on Jericho – the lowest-situated city in the world Views: 1082 Urban Trekker

We’ve previously written about Peru’s La Rinconada, which is considered to be the highest-situated human settlement in the world. Whether you were wondering where is the lowest one, head to the Death Sea, the surface of which is over 400 meters (1310 feet) below sea level/the average ocean level.

There are several places in the proximity of the Dead Sea’s coastlines, by far one of the most intriguing lakes in the world, formed from a rift in the Earth’s crust and one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water. One of them is Jericho, which is about 240 meters (780 feet) below sea level.

Panoramic view of Jericho, as seen from Tell es-Sultan, Photo credit: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0

Besides the claim Jericho is the world’s lowest city or town in the world, it might also be one of the world’s oldest. However, the world’s oldest title has also been pledged by a number of other cities, such as Syria’s Damascus, Egypt’s Luxor or Lebanon’s Byblos and Beirut.

Jericho is a Palestinian city nestled in the West Bank, in the Jordan Valley which encompasses the greater area of the Dead Sea, and is also very close to Jerusalem (less than 30 kilometers/19 miles to the west). This city is the home of some 20,000 people and has been handed over to the Palestinian Authority only in 1994. Jordan has occupied Jericho from 1949 until 1967, and Israel during the period in between.

Jericho marketplace, some two weeks after the Six-Day War in 1967

At its lowest point, Jericho sits at 260 meters (850 feet) below sea level. Nearby Ein Gedi, which belongs to Israel and is not quite a city but a kibbutz (an Israeli communal town), is even lower than that—at 280 meters (920 feet) below sea level.

The municipality of Jericho, some two weeks after the Six-Day War in 1967

What makes Jericho even more special is that it’s believed to be one of the oldest inhabited places in the world. Archeologists have managed to discover the remnants of over 20 successive settlements in Jericho or Tell al-Sultan as the city is wide-known in the West Bank. The earliest remnants date back to 9,000 B.C., which is the earliest date also associated with the building of the temenoi the ceremonial structures at Turkey’s Göbekli Tepe (perhaps the oldest proto-religious site on the planet) and roughly five centuries before humans domesticated the first cattle in Africa.

Dwelling foundations unearthed at Tell es-Sultan in Jericho

Jericho is considered to be the city with the oldest-known protective walls in the world and has also been thought to have the world’s oldest stone tower before evidence of more ancient towers resurfaced at Tell Qaramel in Syria, an archeological mound close to Aleppo.

In Hebrew, the name Jericho might mean “fragrant” or perhaps also “moon.” According to the Canaanite languages, spoken by the ancient Semitic people of Canaan and Levant (the regions that are nowadays Israel, the Palestine territories, Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, and Syria), the word for fragrant is “reaẖ” and for the moon is “Yareaẖ.” According to Canaanite religion, Yarikh is also the name of a moon deity or the “illuminator of the myriads of stars.”

Aerial view of Jericho, 1931. Air route following the old Jerusalem-Jericho Road. From the photograph collection of G. Eric and Edith Matson

There are several must-see places in and around the world’s lowest-situated city. The Monastery of the Temptation, which is said to be the place where Jesus refused the three temptations by Satan, overlooks Jericho from a cliff. The famed monastery site sits on the slopes of the Mount of Temptation, some 350 meters (1150 feet) above sea level. It is under Palestine jurisdiction but in the ownership and management of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.

The Monastery of the Temptation located on the cliffs overlooking Jericho. Photo credit: Dmitrij Rodionov, CC BY-SA 3.0

Only 3 km (less than 2 miles) from Jericho is Hisham’s Palace, a prominent complex in the desert that reveals the remnants of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham residence (724 – 743 A.D.). The Umayyad being the second of the four major caliphates that thrived after the death of Muhammed.

Hisham’s Palace site view, West Bank, Palestine. Photo credit: Michael Darter, CC BY-SA 3.0

Last but not least, downtown Jericho there is also the Zacchaeus Sycamore Tree, believed to be the same tree which Zacchaeus used to climb and get a better view of Jesus preaching some 2,000 years ago. Zacchaeus, who was a chief-tax collector at Jericho, gets a mention in the Gospel of Luke.

Whether you wonder which is the lowest capital city across the world—it’s Azerbaijan’s Baku, situated 28 meters (92 feet) below sea level. Baku also ranks as the biggest city in the world found below the level. It outranks Amsterdam that is 12 feet below sea level as well as Copenhagen, the average elevation of which is about 0 feet.

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Tags: Ancient Middle East, cities of the world, Jericho, Middle East cities, Palestine, the Dead Sea, West Bank