The Jericho Tower: Defensive Purposes

1011 Words3 Pages

One of the greatest mysteries of the Neolithic period in Ancient Israel is that of the Jericho Tower. In the Neolithic period, humans were attempting permanent settlements for the first time, and slowly transitioning to an agriculturally based society. The Jericho Tower represents the first monumental building structure in the Levant region when human began to first settle down. However, no one knows why the people at Jericho built this tower. The three main theories behind the tower are for defensive purposes, flood prevention, or as a clock tower. Archaeologists and academics have been struggling to definitively answer the question of the Jericho Tower, but the theory of the clock tower holds as the most likely option. The first theory behind the construction of the Jericho Tower was for defensive purposes. The wall, which in …show more content…

The mystery of the Tower will always be a question archaeologists grapple with. However, through archaeology and rigorous academic work, there are the three theories discussed above that speculate its origins. While defensive purposes make sense on the surface level, without any obvious enemies and no other fortified settlements in the area the lack of evidence indicates it was not built for that purpose. Flooding prevention also has an absence of concrete evidence and when adding the fact that flooding is not a common feature of the region, it as is also disproven. The last, and best, theory remaining describes the Tower as a clock tower. With its alignment to both Mt. Quruntul and the summer solstice, this theory has the most compelling evidence. A combination of these theories is probably the closest to the truth. The Jericho Tower possibly served to indicate when the summer began and could have been also used to protect the settlement if necessary. The mystery of the Jericho Tower still remains unknown and will continue to baffle archaeologists for years to

More about The Jericho Tower: Defensive Purposes

Open Document