Ancient Frontiers: Boundary, Defensive And Offensive Walls
Long before great city walls were raised, 10,000 years ago, early hunter-gather-fishers as well as emerging farmers, built the settlement of Jericho (West Bank, Palestine) using adobe mud bricks, enclosing their community with a strong stone wall. Over the millennia Jericho was attacked and defended hundreds of times and in every battle, invaders focused on toppling the outer wall while the inhabitants’ sole defensive efforts focused on supporting it. According to a History Extra article titled A brief history of border walls – from 2,000 BC to Trump’s Mexico wall, during the Early Bronze Age (3300–2100 BC), Jericho had rebuilt its walls “as many as 17 times… and other walled cities, soon to be followed by walled kingdoms, finally became walled empires.”
Tower of Jericho, Tell es-Sultan archaeological site, showing wall building crafts dating back to circa 8000 BC. (Salamandra123/ CC BY-SA 3.0)
According to Joshua 6:1–27, in the Hebrew Bible, the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites marched around them blowing trumpets once a day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day. While this biblical myth may have political motivations, inhabiting walled communities exemplifies a game changer in humankind’s existence. Throughout history, every time a civilization collapsed, their decline invariably began with a crack in their defensive walls.
