Читать книгу World History For Dummies - Peter Haugen - Страница 53

The Bible says that Joshua and the Israelites raised a ruckus that brought down the walls of Jericho, a city in Canaan (today’s Palestinian-administered West Bank). Jericho appears to be one of the world’s oldest cities; it predates even the early civilizations along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern Iraq. What the Bible doesn’t say is that Jericho’s walls of perhaps 3,200 years ago were built on top of walls that were built on top of walls. (Maybe that’s why those walls toppled so easily when Joshua and his posse arrived.) Scientists date the settlement’s earliest buildings to as early as 9000 BC, which is about 11,000 years ago. True, Jericho was abandoned and rebuilt maybe 20 times, but when you’re talking about thousands of years, what are 20 do-overs?

Scientists say Jericho’s living quarters were first round and then in later levels the style changed to rectangular. Researchers can speculate about the residents’ lifestyle based on the stuff found lying around—pottery and animal bones stand up to time rather well. Human skulls fitted with realistic plaster faces, for example, may have been creepy reconstructions of dead loved ones or slain enemies.

Most significantly, the walls and tall stone tower of Jericho tell a story. They show researchers that residents worked together for a common goal: to build civic structures that provided community defense. Working together in such an organized way — whether voluntarily or under the orders of a hard-handed ruler — is a sign of civilization.

Unfortunately, archaeologists don’t know the names and stories that passed from generation to generation by word of mouth in the earliest centuries of Jericho. You can assume that people gossiped about romances and affairs. Guys no doubt bragged about the size of the fish they almost caught in the Jordan River. They surely teased and trash talked, especially after a little too much wine. And they must have told stories. But civilization didn’t wait for a way to write things down so that later generations could read about its beginnings.