Jericho / Tell es-Sultan

Tell es-Sultan is an archaeological mound northwest of present-day Jericho, in Palestine’s Jordan Valley. It was a sizeable permanent settlement by the ninth and eighth millennia BCE and also preserves Bronze Age layers. A “tell” is a mound accumulated from settlement remains, so the same place holds evidence from different times. ^[2]

Its finds include skulls treated after death and covered with modelled plaster faces. The British Museum assigns one example, number 1954,0215.1, to Pre-Pottery NeolithicPre-Pottery NeolithicA regional term for early Neolithic phases in Southwest Asia before the local spread of pottery; it does not imply an absence of settlement, architecture or cereal processing.Glossary · Click to read the explanation B and gives a broad catalogue range of 8500–6000 BCE. Such objects help study the treatment of the dead and collective memory in early communities. ^[1][3]

When comparing the site’s remains with biblical stories about Jericho, the first question is which layer and period the evidence belongs to. Neolithic skulls and the Bronze Age city provide different contexts. ^[2]