A city in the Jordan valley just north of the Dead Sea, and one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements known anywhere — excavation has found a stone tower and wall at Tell es-Sultan dating to roughly 8000 BC, several thousand years before writing. It sits about 250 metres BELOW sea level, watered by a spring, which is why a town is there at all in that heat. ⚠ Hebrews 11:30 credits the fall of its walls to faith; the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age destruction and its date has been argued over for a century and is not settled here. Jericho returns in the Gospels as the city Jesus passes through for Zacchaeus and for blind Bartimaeus, and as the destination of the road in the parable of the good Samaritan.