[3] From the end of the era of Mandatory Palestine, the city was annexed and ruled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 and, with the rest of the West Bank, has been subject to Israeli occupation since 1967; administrative control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in 1994.

[10] Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years (to 9000 BCE),[11][12] almost to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history.

Since 2009 the Italian-Palestinian archaeological project of excavation and restoration was resumed by Rome "La Sapienza" University and Palestinian MOTA-DACH under the direction of Lorenzo Nigro and Hamdan Taha, and Jehad Yasine since 2015.

The earliest excavated settlement was located at the present-day Tell es-Sultan (or Sultan's Hill), a couple of kilometers from the current city.

However, the Ein es-Sultan spring at what would become Jericho was a popular camping ground for Natufian hunter-gatherer groups, who left a scattering of crescent-shaped microlith tools behind them.

[26] Around 9600 BCE, the droughts and cold of the Younger Dryas stadial had come to an end, making it possible for Natufian groups to extend the duration of their stay, eventually leading to year-round habitation and permanent settlement.

[27][28] As the world warmed up, a new culture based on agriculture and sedentary dwelling emerged, which archaeologists have termed "Pre-Pottery Neolithic A" (abbreviated as PPNA).

Its cultures lacked pottery, but featured the following:[citation needed] At Jericho, circular dwellings were built of clay and straw bricks left to dry in the sun, which were plastered together with a mud mortar.

[citation needed] Chronology (Nigro 2016) There was evidence of a small settlement in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400s BCE) on the site, but erosion and destruction from previous excavations have erased significant parts of this layer.

[46][47] The Hebrew Bible tells the story of the Battle of Jericho led by Joshua, leading to the fall of the Canaanite city, the first one captured by the Israelites in the Promised Land.

Archaeological excavations have failed to find traces of a fortified city at the site during the relevant time, the 13th century BCE at the end of the Bronze Age.

[51] Jericho went from being an administrative centre of Yehud Medinata ("the Province of Judah") under Persian rule to serving as the private estate of Alexander the Great between 336 and 323 BCE after his conquest of the region.

[55] After the abandonment of the Tell es-Sultan location, the new Jericho of the Late Hellenistic or Hasmonean and Early Roman or Herodian periods was established as a garden city in the vicinity of the royal estate at Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq and expanded greatly thanks to the intensive exploitation of the springs of the area.

[56] The rock-cut tombs of a Herodian- and Hasmonean-era cemetery lie in the lowest part of the cliffs between Nuseib al-Aweishireh and Mount of Temptation.

After their joint suicide in 30 BCE, Octavian assumed control of the Roman Empire and granted Herod absolute rule over Jericho, as part of the new Herodian domain.

Herod's rule oversaw the construction of a hippodrome-theatre (Tell es-Samrat) to entertain his guests and new aqueducts to irrigate the area below the cliffs and reach his winter palaces built at the site of Tulul Abu el-Alaiq (also written ʾAlayiq).

[55]The Christian Gospels state that Jesus of Nazareth passed through Jericho where he healed blind beggars (Matthew 20:29), and inspired a local chief tax collector named Zacchaeus to repent of his dishonest practices (Luke 19:1–10).

[59] John Wesley, in his New Testament Notes on this section of Luke's Gospel, claimed that "about twelve thousand priests and Levites dwelt there, who all attended the service of the temple".

[66] A decade later, the pilgrim Arculf visited Jericho and found it in ruins, all its "miserable Canaanite" inhabitants now dispersed in shanty towns around the Dead Sea shore.

They also built another two churches and a monastery dedicated to John the Baptist, and were credited by 19th-century authors with introducing sugarcane production to the city,[72] although now scholars date it to the pre-Crusader, Early Arab period.

[73] Jericho was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, and in 1545 a revenue of 19,000 Akçe was recorded, destined for the new Waqf for the Haseki Sultan Imaret of Jerusalem.

They paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, vineyards and fruit trees, goats and beehives, water buffaloes, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 40,000 Akçe.

[77] The French traveller Laurent d'Arvieux described the city in 1659 as "now desolate, and consists only of about fifty poor houses, in bad condition ...

[95] During World War II The British built fortresses in Jericho with the help of the Jewish company Solel Boneh, and bridges were rigged with explosives in preparation for a possible invasion by German allied forces.

[105] In 2009, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs David Johnson inaugurated the Presidential Guard Training Center in Jericho, a $9.1 million training facility for Palestinian Authority security forces built with U.S.

[107] Jericho is located 258 metres (846 ft) below sea level in an oasis in Wadi Qelt in the Jordan Valley, which makes it the lowest city in the world.

[20][108] A 3,500 ha (8,600-acre) site encompassing the city of Jericho and its immediate surrounds has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of black francolins, lanner falcons, lesser kestrels, and Dead Sea sparrows.

[115] In 1994, Israel and Palestine signed an economic accord that enabled Palestinians in Jericho to open banks, collect taxes and engage in export and import in preparation for self-rule.

Agricultural processing companies are being offered financial concessions to lease plots of land in the park in a bid to boost Jericho's economy.

[116] In April 2010, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) held a groundbreaking ceremony for the renovation of the Jericho Governmental Hospital.