Russian scientists have resumed excavations on the territory of the Byzantine part of Jericho and found that the city was inhabited much earlier than scientists had previously believed. The press service of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences tells about the latest findings and conclusions of scientists.
These excavations, according to Belyaev, have been conducted since 2010 at the place where the legendary biblical Jericho was located - a city whose walls, according to the Bible, were brought down by Joshua with the help of the shouts and trumpets of the Israeli army.
Archaeologists have been studying the ruins of Jericho for a century and a half, but Russian scientists did not participate in this process for over 100 years after the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society ceased to exist. It received part of the territory of the Jericho oasis as a gift from the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem at the end of the 19th century. The first excavations were carried out here in 1891, but after the revolution they were not renewed.
In 2008, the Palestinian Authority returned this site to the ownership of Russia, and it was decided to create a museum and park complex on it. During the construction and after it, archaeological excavations were carried out under the leadership of Belyaev and with the participation of scientists from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
According to Belyaev, his team was interested not in the ancient Jewish parts of Jericho, well studied by foreign historians and archaeologists, but in its Byzantine part. This city was one of the centers of trade and religious worship in the early eras of Byzantium, and archaeologists became interested in its heritage in Palestine relatively recently, in the last third of the 20th century.
The first excavations that Russian scientists carried out on the territory of Jericho in 2010-2013 brought a lot of interesting discoveries. Archaeologists have discovered a unique water supply system for the city, as well as a water purification system from debris. In addition, they confirmed that sugar was actually produced on its territory, and even found traces of it in the mosaics in the walls of the building, where sugar molasses and the legendary “Gilead balsam” were cooked to heal wounds.
Recently, as noted by Belyaev, his expedition resumed work after receiving a new grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. These excavations have unexpectedly shown that Byzantine Jericho has a much deeper, richer and more complex history than historians originally assumed.
Scientists focused their efforts on two sites - a large pottery "factory" that existed in different versions during the rule of Rome, Byzantium and the Arabs, and the alleged ruins of a palace or stone monastery, whose walls were covered with mosaics. Archaeologists found its fragments last year and were able to restore some of the patterns.
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On their territory, scientists discovered a system of cisterns and water conduits, various traces of ceramic production, glass utensils, religious artifacts, furnaces for burning ceramics and many other artifacts, including a large number of coins, including those that were minted during the life of contemporaries Jesus Christ.
In addition, under the stonework of the living quarters, Belyaev and his team found traces of older structures, presumably dating back to the Roman period. Their purpose and the history of the construction remains undisclosed due to the small number of artifacts found on their territory - as the archaeologist noted, Russian scientists did not find anything "Roman" there, except for a few coins and stone vessels.